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THE 


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BY 


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■>   t  1  ■,    J 


(viscount    de    cormenin.) 
TRANSLATED  BY 

A  MEMBER  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  BAR  ; 

FROM    THE    XlVth    PARIS    EDITION. 

WITH   AN 

ESSAY   ON-THE   RISE    OF  FRENCH  REVOLUTIONARY    ELOQUENCE, 
AND    THE    ORATORS    OF    THE    GIRONDISTS, 

BY  J.  T.  HEADLEY: 
EDITED  BY  G.  H.  COLTON, 

WITH    NOTES   AND   BIOGRAPHICAL    ADDENDA: 
ILLUSTRATED. 


NEW  YORK: 
BAKER  AND  SCRIBNER, 

36  PARK  ROW  AND  145  NASSAU  STREET. 


1847. 


.    ,*    •     •  • 


..-'.••*'     :  . . 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1847, 

BAKER    &    SCRIBNER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for 
the   Southern  District  of  New  York. 

REQ.  OF  SSRS 

GIFT 


THOMAS    B.    SMITH,    STKRKOTYPER,  S.    W.    BKNEDUT,    PRINTKR, 

Q16  WILtlAM  STRKKT,  N.  V.  16  SPRIU^E   STREET. 


LIST     OF    PLATES. 

FACING. 

I.    MiRABEATJ,      •.•..,,  1 

II.  Danton,            ••••,.  37 

III.  Napoleon, gg 

IV.  Lamartine, 241 

V.  GuizoT, 263 

VI.  Thiers,   .        .        ..        •        •        ,        ,  286 


l\/i?55G54: 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Editor's  Advertisement, vii 

Translator's  Preface,       ........  ix 

An  Essay  on  the  rise  and  fall  of  eloquence  in  the  French  Revo- 
lution,           .         ^ XV 

CONSTITUENT   ASSEMBLY. 

MiRAEEAU.       ..........       1 

THE   CONVENTION. 

DA^TON. 37 

THE   EMPIRE. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte.         .......     66 

THE  RESTORATION. 

M.  De  Serre •        ,  '      ,        ,        .  102 

General  Foy 112 

Benjamin  Constant. 123 

royer-collard.    , 133 

Manuel 146 

REVOLUTfON  OF  JULY. 

Garnier-Pages 151 

Casimir-Perier.     . 174 

Sauzet,  Pesident  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.           .        .  181 

General  Lafayette 192 

Odillon-Barrot.        .        .        .  ' 199 

M.  DupiN 216 


VI  CONTENTS. 

REVOLUTION   OF  JVLY—{co?itinued.) 

PAGE 

M.  Berryer ,  229 

Lamartine 241 

GuizoT 263 

M.  Thiers 286 

O'CONNELL •            .            .             .  314 

BIOGRAPHICAL  ADDENDA. 

MiRABEAU 327 

Danton. 354 

Benjamin  Constant.           .......  362 

royer-collard.         ........  365 

Lamartine 367 

GuizoT »        .        .        .  373 

Thiers. 376 


EDITOR'S   ADVERTISEMENT. 


Few  remarks  can  be  needed,  in  addition  to  those  which 
the  Translator  has  stated,  to  explain  the  objects  of  introdu- 
cing the  Oratorical  "  .Portraits"  of  Viscount  de  Cormenin,  to 
the  American  people.  So  far  as  the  prevalent  fever  for 
book-making  might  furnish  an  explanation,  it  would  be  suf- 
ficient to  say,  that  no  work  issued  in  Europe  for  some  years 
past,  has  been  more  extensively  popular  than  these  singular 
and  powerful  sketches,  or  "  Portraits,"  as  the  Author  more 
aptly  entitles  them.  They  originally  appeared  at  Paris 
under  the  sisrnature  of ''  Timon,"  and,  with  various  brilliant 
political  pamphlets  under  the  same  name,  attracted  extraor- 
dinary attention.  Sixteen  or  eighteen  editions  have  since 
been  published  at  Paris,  and  twelve  separate  editions  at 
Brussels  ;  and  by  examining  the  various  sketches  of  the  pub- 
lic men  of  France  that  have  appeared  lately  in  the  English 
periodicals,  it  would  be  found  that  many  of  their  most  effec- 
tive limnings  have  been  transferred  from  Cormenin.  This 
popularity  has  been  owing,  not  more  to  the  quality  and 
distinction  of  the  characters  portrayed,  than  to  the  orig- 
inal and  striking  style  of  their  portraiture.  With  very 
great  and  powerful  discrimination,  a  singular  logical  acutc- 
ness,  perspicuity^,  and  frequent  eloquence,  "Timon"  dis- 
plays a  scornful  elegance,  a  subtile  force  of  sarcasm,  and 
grace  of  badinage,  not  excelled  by  any  writer  since  Voltaire. 
It  is  power,  concealed  in  a  garb  of  lightness — the  blow  is  felt 
when  only  the  rustling  of  the  robes  is  seen.  His  skill  ia 
characterization  has  not  been  surpassed. 

Several  of  the  Sketches  are  of  Oratois  previous  to  the 
asre  of  Cormenin.  Of  these  the  first  two,  of  Mirabeau  and 
Danton,  are,  in  themselves,  among  the  finest  specimens  of 
descriptive  oratory  ;  and  the  third  is  the  only  good  represen- 
tation yet  given  of  the  extraordinary  military  eloquence  of 
Napoleon.  Of  the  modern  Orators,  the  author's  limnings  of 
Lamartine,  Thiers,  Guizot,  and  O'Connell — the  only  foreign- 
er  admitted  to  the  gallery — will  attract  particular  attention  , 
and  those  of  Manuel,  Constant,  Collard,  and  others  less  known 
to  us,  must  be  acknowledged  models  of  political  portraiture. 

But,  aside  from  the  evident  popular  qualities  of  the  book, 


viii  editor's    advertisement. 

two  other  considerations  liad  a  decisive  influence  in  deter- 
mining their  publication  in  this  country.  The  first  is,  the 
fact  that  nearly  all  our  impressions  of  the  men  and  public 
affairs  of  Continental  Europe,  have  been  obtained  through 
English  books  and  the  English  press.  It  is  time  that  we 
should  acquaint  ourselves  with  those  nations  directly,— 
through  their  own  politics  and  their  own  literature.  Of 
the  French  literature  introduced  among  us,  moreover,  we 
have  generally  had  the  feeblest  and  least  instructive  part. 

The  second  was  a  consideration  of  style,  having  refer- 
ence to  the  literary  productions  of  this  country.  It  is  a  topic 
of  common  remark,  that  the  style  of  American  authors  has 
come  to  be,  in  nearly  all  departments  of  writing,  of  too  la- 
bored and  too  uniform  a  character ; — that  in  philosophy,  law, 
theology,  politics,  narrative,  fiction,  addresses,  newspaper 
and  periodical  writing,  alike,  though  grave  and  forcible,  it 
has  too  little  ease  and  too  similar  a  movement.  It  needs  to  be 
broken  up  : — if  so,  there  can  be  no  readier,  or  more  effective 
way  to  accomplish  this,  than  by  introducing  among  our  Eng- 
lish models,  which  we  have  too  closely  followed,  a  variety  of 
brilliant  works  from  the  pens  of  foreign  authors.  Our  Saxon 
mind  possesses,  in  its  earnestness,  a  most  excellent  quality  ; 
— but  it  wears  its  armor  too  heavily.  It  does  not  seem  too 
much  to  hope,  that  these  "  Portraits"  of  "  Timon"  will 
affect,  to  a  very  sensible  degree,  the  future  style  of  the 
writings  of  this  country,  especially  on  all  political  topics. 

The  translation  was  executed  by  a  member  of  the  New 
York  Bar,  and  with  a  force  and  aptness  of  language,  it  will 
be  found,  not  very  common  in  our  versions  of  foreign 
authors.  The  Essay,  which  was  needed  to  illustrate  some 
points,  on  which  Cormenin  does  not  touch,  as  the  rise  of 
French  Revolutionary  eloquence,  with  some  notice  of  the 
Orators  of  the  Girondists,  was  furnished  by  Mr.  Headley, 
whose  studies  and  writings  have  made  him  familiar  with 
that  period.  The  only  parts  supplied  by  the  Editor  are 
some  fifty  pages  of  "  Biographical  Addenda,"  giving  more 
dates  and  particulars  in  the  lives  of  the  most  distin- 
guished of  Cormenin's  subjects,  than  the  author  has  fur- 
nished— for  "  Timon"  does  not  so  much  sketch  their  lives 
as  their  characters.  The  orators,  to  whom  this  matter 
relates,  are  Mirabeau,  Danton,  Benjamin  Constant,  Royer 
Collard.  Lamartine,  Guizot,  and  Thiers. 

New  York,  May,  1847.  The  Editor. 


TRANSLATOR'S  PREFACE. 


Two  or  three  objects  have  been  principally  contemplated 
in  the  introduction  of  this  celebrated  book  to  the  American 
public  :  they  relate  to  the  Nature  of  the  subject,  the  Execu- 
tion of  the  original,  and  the  Aim  of  the  translation. 

The  importance  of  the  Oratorical  art  it  would  doubtless  be 
superfluous  to  urge  upon  a  community  wherein,  daily,  even 
its  semblance  is  seen  to  command  that  political  considera- 
tion which  is  accessible  only  to  birth,  or  to  fortune,  or  (but 
rarer  alas !)  to  wisdom,  in  other  conditions  of  society  :  of  its 
productive  value,  at  least  in  this  personal  respect,  our  read- 
ers are  all  sufficiently  sensible.  But  the  urgency,  espe- 
cially of  the  public  interest,  for  something  more  of  the  real- 
ity, is  felt,  perhaps,  not  so  generally  ;  and  by  fewer  still  con- 
ceived, the  proper  mode  and  means  of  attaining  it. 

To  such  a  situation  and  purpose  nothing  could  well  be 
more  suitable  than  the  treatise  of  de  Cormenin  ;  as  should, 
indeed,  be  expected  from  a  man  of  European  distinction  in 
nearly  all  the  qualifications,  practical  as  well  as  theoretical, 
for  the  task.  Of  the  two  Parts,  into  which  it  is  divided,  the 
present  publication  contains  but  the  Second.  The  First  lays 
down  the  Principles  and  Precepts,  and  in  the  several  species 
of  eloquence,  the  Forensic,  Military,  Pulpit,  Popular  as  well 
as  the  Parliamentary — including,  also,  the  "  Tactics"  of  par- 
ties, of  deliberative  assemblies,  of  Opposition  and  Ministerial 
policy  ;  all  which  the  Portraits,  here  presented,  were  meant 
to  illustratfe  by  example,  in  a  corresponding  series.  And 
this  was  the  methodical  arrangement,  undoubtedly.  But 
the  inverse  order  is  better  adapted,  probably,  to  the  readers 
of  this  translation.  And,  at  all  events,  the  counterpart  may 
be  expected  to  follow  soon — composing  a  volume  of  nearly 
equal  size.. 


X  translator's    PREFACE. 

Besides  the  interest  of  the  matter,  the  work  presents,  more- 
over, in  its  method  and  style,  a  consummate  model,  espe- 
cially for  political  writing,  that  is  to  say  the  writing  which 
is  long  to  remain  in  chief  request  in  our  country.  This  fea- 
ture must  be  obvious  to  the  least  instructed  of  the  readers. 
It  is,  in  fact,  as  a  writer  unapproached  in  the  combination 
of  dialectical  precision  with  amplitude  of  view,  of  pol- 
ished and  even  courteous  elegance  of  language  with  the 
most  truculent  severity  of  invective,  and  of  picturesqueness 
of  expression  with  profundity  of  thought — it  is  for  this  that 
the  author's  name,  or  rather  pseudonyme,  is  renowned,  in 
even  Europe,  rather  than  for  his  qualities,  scarce  less  eminent, 
as  statesman  and  jurist.  But  more  express  than  his  gen- 
eral example,  we  are  furnished,  in  the  didactic  part  alluded 
to,  with  a  chapter  devoted  to  the  regular  institution  of  polit- 
ical writing. 

To  evince  the  deplorable  need  of  amendment  in  this  par- 
ticular also,  it  is  not  necessary,  and  were  invidious,  to  go 
into  the  actual  character  of  this  principal  branch  of  our  lit- 
erature. If  it  have  any,  one  might  describe  it — a  confused 
compost  of  the  hacknied  and  half-obsolete  forms  and  phrase- 
ology of  British  journalism  and  politics,  always  without  sys- 
tem, frequently  without  signification,  utterly  without  style. 
Evidence  of  this  will  occur,  indirectly,  in  the  following 
pages,  where  care  has  been  taken,  with  this  very  view,  to 
render  several  terms  of  the  original,  chiefly  political,  ac- 
cording to  reason  and  the  analogy,  rather  than  the  corrupt 
practice,  of  our  idiom.  And  if  the  reader,  when  his  atten- 
tion shall  probably  be  arrested  by  such  as  "strange,"  will, 
instead  of  dismissing  them  for  French  fantasies,  but  compare 
them  intelligently  with  the  word  he  would  have  expected 
according  to  popular  usage,  he  will  find  this  coHtrast  open 
curious  gleams  into  the  real  condition  of  much  of  our  politi- 
cal and  juridical  terminology.  It  must  be  suggestive  to  him 
of  still  more  than  this.  He  will  doubtless  proceed  to  ask 
himself,  how  the  French,  a  people  so  much  younger  politi- 
cally  than  the  English  race,  have  yet  already  come  to  be 


translator's    PREFACE.  xi 

our  masters  in  the  dialects  of  politics  and  of  administration, 
as  v^eW  as  of  fashion  and  cookery  ?  The  inevitable  an- 
swer will  lead  him  to  generalize  his  inference  of  delective- 
ness,  from  a  special  department,  to  the  body,  of  our  language ; 
and  will,  at  the  same  time,  strikingly  exhibit,  by  results  of 
fact,  what  is  so  difficult  of  direct  demonstration — the  im- 
mense and  universal  advantages  of  a  logical  and  scientific 
superiority  of  language. 

To  direct  the  thoughtful  reader's  attention  to  this  compar- 
ative deficiency,  not  alone  of  our  political,  but  also  of  our 
popular  and  literary  vocabulary,  was  the  third  object,  above- 
mentioned,  proposed  by  this  publication.  Or  rather,  it  was 
to  inculcate  by  a  slight  example,  the  most  efficient,  perhaps, 
or  at  least  the  most  available  mode  of  gradually  supplying 
it — I  mean  intelligent  translation.  Translation  amongst  us 
— and  the  reproach  may  be  extended  to  England — since  it 
has  become  a  mere  handcraft,  is  but  a  wretched  travesty,  at 
least  in  books  of  the  £esthetical  kind.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  with  versions  from  the  French,  in  consequence  chiefly 
of  the  disparity  of  development  alluded  to,  between  the  lan- 
guages. Now,  this  mutilation,  besides  the  implied  insult  to 
the  "  reading  public"  and  the  flagrant  outrage  upon  the  au- 
thor, is  censurable,  moreover,  in  neglecting,  in  abusing,  this 
excellent  means  of  amendin<T  and  enriching  the  vernacular 
language,  excellent  especially  when  the  dialect  of  the  origi- 
nal is,  like  the  French,  the  more  advanced.  But  the  ex- 
cuse is  ready  and  recognized.  Idiomatic  expressions  are  to 
be  insurmountably  reverenced,  says  one  of  those  pedantic 
superstitions  which,  in  language,  as  well  as  law,  politics 
and  the  rest,  would  ever  have  the  manhood  of  the  mind  still 
move  in  the  go-car  of  its  infancy.  To  hear  the  herd  of  our 
critics  descant  upon,  as  beauties  of  the  language,  what  are 
really  badges  of  its  barbarism — necessarily  vulgarities  of  the 
populace  before  they  became  refinements  of  the  purists — 
do  you  not' fancy  a  crowd  of  cripples  who,  though  now 
quite  healed  by  the  unconscious  overflow  of  the  Siloan  wa- 
ters of  advancing  science,  should  not  only  persist  in  using 


xii  translator's    preface. 

the  crutches  instead  of  their  legs,  but  limp  about  priding 
themselves  upon  their  enlightened  preference,  and  preaQhing 
it  to  all  around  ? 

But  the  subject  is  too  large  for  this  place.     Be  the  prin- 
ciple as  it  may,  to  any  one  really  competent  to  translate  (an 
accomplishment  by  the  way  not  so  common  perhaps  as  most 
people  think)  these  peculiarities  of  expression  can  offer  lit- 
tle or  no  difficulty,  in  dialects  come,  to  the  stage  of  matu- 
rity  to  own    a   literature    worth  translating.     To    explain 
briefly :  Idioms,  as  they  take  rise  from  an  extremely  con- 
crete state  of  the  language,  so  tend  to  disappear  with  its 
proficiency  in  generalization ;  thus  we    find  no  idioms  in 
the  language  of  philosophy  and  science.     In  the   merely 
literary  and    popular  phraseology,  the  epuration  proceeds 
variously,  according  as  they  are  idioms  of  phrase,  or  only 
of  terms.     The  former  begin  to  drop  off  at  an  earlier  stage 
of  logical  refinement,  and  fall  into  utter  disuse.     Already, 
no  English  writer  would  venture  to  use  the  greater  part 
of  even  the    famous  idioms  of   Addison,  though  still  cant- 
ing about  them,  mechanically,  as  the  last  perfections  of  the 
lancruaffe.     And  amongst  ourselves,  what  educated  writer  or 
talker  now  employs  the  American  idioms  of  Sam  Slick,  for 
example? — which,  however,  would  no  doubt  have  been,  to- 
day, in  a  fair  way  of  becoming  the  Addisonian  elegancies  of 
our  men  of  letters,  had  our  society  been  left,  in  anything, 
to  the  natural  growth,  and  had  not  the  language  especially 
been  under  the  wholesome  control,  or  the  nipping  criticism, 
of  British  literature.     Inaccuracy  or  uricouthness  in  our 
translations,  then,  should  find  no  excuse  on  the  score  of  idioms 
of  this  class  ;  of  which  any  that  remain  still  in  use  are  for  the 
most  part  general  maxims  of  common  sense,  such  as  proverbs, 
and  susceptible,  by  reason  of  this  universality,  of  being  ren- 
dered by  equivalent,  when  not  by  analogical,  expressions. 

The  idioms  of  word  or  term  are  more  permanent  and  form 
in  fact  the  chief  part  of  the  difficulty  in  question.  In  these 
the  progression  operates,  not  as  in  the  other  by  decay,  but 
by  a  species  of  transformation.     And  the  reason  is  conclu- 


translator's    preface.  xiii 

sive.  The  idiom  of  phrase  is  a  comhination,  good  for  only 
a  special  purpose,  with  which  it  must  consequently  cease ; 
whereas  the  word  is  an  element,  and  thus  equally  adapts  itself 
to  other  combinations  or  modifications.  Now,  it  is  precisely 
in  the  imperfect  development  of  these  derivative  forms,  in 
the  deficiency  of  its  abstract  and  generalized  vocabulary, 
that  our  language,  and  our  translators  (from  the  French  es- 
pecially) seem  both  to  be  at  fault.  But  this  is  ordinarily 
remediable  under  the  guidance  of  analogy,  and  not  only  so 
legitimately,  but  laudably.  The  process  has  received  special 
attention  in  the  following  version.  And  if  we  duly  consider 
the  characteristic  refinements  of  style  together  with  the 
evanescent  metaphysics  of  moral  portraiture,  which  make  this 
book  perhaps  the  most  difficult  in  any  language  to  translate, 
it  will  be  allowed  that  the  experiment  has  been  put  fairly  to 
the  test.  If  at  all  successful,  it  may  lead  our  translators  to 
attempt,  or  at  least  the  public  to  exact,  more  care  in  the 
manufacture  of  this  the  present,  and  indeed  prospective,  sta- 
ple of  our  original  or  unpilfered  literature.  Not,  however, 
that  I  pretend  the  translation  does  not  remain  very  suscep- 
tible of  improvement,  as  I  have  found  but  too  sensibly  on  a 
running  revisal  of  the  proofs.  In  truth  it  was  done  hastily, 
and  with  the  design  of  ulterior  correction,  which  has  been 
precluded  by  other  engagements  deemed  of  more  conse- 
quence. At  the  same  time,  I  do  not  decline  the  respon- 
sibility at  least  of  two  qualities,  which  it  may  look,  indeed, 
like  satire  to  profess :  The  diction  is  English ;  the  thought 
is  that  of  the  Author,  not  merely  in  substance  hit  even  form. 

In  avering  fidelity,  I  should  in  rigor  perhaps  except  a  few 
effusions  of  transcendental  democracy ;  which,  though  ex- 
cellent, of  course,  upon  occasion,  I  took  the  liberty  of  sup- 
pressing,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  proverb  against  "  carrying 
coals  to  Newcastle." 

But  here  the  responsibility  of  the  translator  ends.  For 
the  residue  of  the  contents,  the  credit  (or  otherwise)  is 
fairly  due  to  the  publishers,  who,  with  the  friend  whose 
name  is  affixed  as  editor,  have  (in  consequence  of  the  en- 


xiv  translator's    preeace. 

gagements  alluded  to)  discharged  me  of  all  attention  to 
the  details  of  publication. 

As  to  the  general  merits  of  the  work  itself,  with  these  few 
observations,  I  leave  them  to  the  readers  to  appreciate,  or 
perhaps  only  postpone  them  to  theissueof  the  other  volume. 
I  close  with  transcribing  from  a  late  Paris  Journal  {le  Na- 
tional) the  following  notice  of  the  work,  announcing  the  six- 
teenth edition. 

"  What  remains,  at  this  day,  to  be  said  of  the  Livre  des 
Oraieurs,  except  that  it  has  proved  a  fortune  to  the  publisher, 
and  a  source  of  new  triumphs  to  the  author  :  the  rapid  sale 
of  fifteen  editions  speaks  abundantly  the  opinion  of  the  pub- 
lic. But  with  M.  DE  CoRMENiN  the  editions  succeed  each 
other  without  being  alike.  He  touches  and  retouches  un- 
ceasingly his  elaborate  pages  ;  he  adds,  retrenches,  trans- 
poses, polishes :  he  is  eminently  the  writer  of  the  file  and 
smoothing-plane  (de  la  lime  et  du  rahot,)  a  rare  merit  in  our 
days,  and  which  evinces  in  the  author  a  proper  respect  for 
both  the  public  and  himself. 

''  The  edition  now  issued  contains  some  new  Portraits,  or 
rather  outlines,  in  the  modest  expression  of  the  author.  For 
as  soon  as  an  orator  appears, '  Timon'  takes  his  pencil,  draws 
a  profile,  sketches  a  head,  completes  a  bust  according  to  the 
rank  assigned  to  each  in  the  parliamentary  hierarchy.  Thus 
does  he  constantly  keep  up  to  the  current  of  parliamentary 
life,  though,  in  truth,  at  present,  neither  active  nor  brilliant. 
And  as  the  sessions  march  on,  the  '  Book  of  the  Orators' 
marches  with  them,  advancing  daily  more  and  more  in  pub- 
lic admiration,  and  above  all,  in  pecuniary  productiveness." 

The  Translator. 


AN    ESSAY 


ON   THE 


RISE  AND  FALL  OF  ELOqUENCE  IN  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION. 


BY    J.    T.    HEAD  LEY. 


The  end  of  all  eloquence  is  to  sway  men.  It  is 
therefore  bound  by  no  arbitrary  rules  of  diction  or 
style — formed  on  no  specific  models,  and  governed 
by  no  edicts  of  self-selected  judges.  It  is  true,  there 
are  degrees  of  eloquence,  and  equal  success  does  not 
imply  equal  excellence.  That  which  is  adapted  to 
sway  the  strongest  minds  of  an  enlightened  age,  ought 
to  be  esteemed  the  most  perfect,  and  doubtless  should 
be  the  gauge  by  which  to  test  the  abstract  excellence 
of  all  oratory.  But  every  nation  has  its  peculiar  tem- 
perament and  tastes,  which  must  be  regarded  in 
making  up  our  judgments.  Indeed,  the  language  it- 
self of  different  countries  compels  a  widely  different 
style  and  manner.  To  the  cold  and  immobile  Eng- 
lishman, the  eloquence  of  Italy  appears  like  frothy 
declamation  ;  while  to  the  latter,  the  passionless  man- 
ner, and  naked  argument  of  the  former,  seem  tame 
and  commonplace.  No  man  of  sense  would  harangue 
the  French,  with  their  volatile  feelings  and  love  of 
scenic  effect,  in  the  same  manner  he  would  the  Dutch 
their  neighbors.  A  similar  contrast  often  exists  in  the 
same  nation.  He  who  could  chain  a  Boston  audience 
by  the  depth  and  originality  of  his  philosophy,  might 
be  esteemed  a  dreamer  in  the  far  West.  Colonel 
Crockett  and  Mr.  Emerson  would  be  very  unequal 


f 

Xvi   CHANGES  IN  TASTE  AND  STYLE. 

candklates  for  fame  amid  our  frontier  population.  A 
similar  though  not  so  striking  a  contrast,  exists  be- 
tween the  North  and  South.  A  speech,  best  adapted 
to  win  the  attention  of  a  mixed  southern  assembly, 
would  be  regarded  too  ornamental,  nay,  perhaps  mer- 
etricious by  one  in  New  England.  The  warm  blood 
of  a  southern  clime  will  bear  richer  ornament  and 
more  imaginative  style,  than  the  calculating  spirit  of 
a  northern  man.  The  same  law  of  adaptation  must 
be  consulted  in  the  changes  of  feeling  and  taste  that 
come  over  the  same  people.  Once  our  forefathers 
liked  the  stern,  unadorned  old  Saxon  in  which  the 
Bible  is  written,  and  which  characterized  the  sturdy 
English  divines.  A  few  years  passed  by,  and  the 
classic  era,  as  it  was  called,  came — that  is,  a  preference 
of  Latin-derived  words  to  Saxon,  or  of  harmony  to 
strength.  Johnson's  lofty  diction  threw  Cicero's  high- 
sounding  sentences  into  the  shade,  and  Addison's  fault- 
less elegance  became  to  language  what  miniature 
painting  is  to  the  art  of  painting  itself.  At  length 
another  generation  came,  and  the  strong  energetic 
style  of  Macaulay,  or  the  equally  strong  but  uncouth 
sentences  of  Carlyle,  and  the  concentration  of  Broug- 
ham, shoved  the  English  classics  from  the  stage.  Now 
the  man  who  sighs  over  this  departure  from  classic 
models,  and  prates  of  corrupt  Engli&4i,  shows  himself 
shallow  both  in  intellect  and  philosophy.  Let  him 
mourn  over  the  new  spirit  that  has  seized  the  world — 
i/ierelies  the  root  of  the  evil,  if  there  be  any.  Men  at 
auction  now-a-days  will  not  talk  as  Dr.  Johnson  did  in 
the  sale  of  Thrale's  brewery — nor  in  the  present  ear- 
nestness, nay  eagerness  of  human  thought  and  feeling, 
will  the  fiery  Saxon  heart  sacrifice  vigor  to  beauty — 
directness  to  harmony.    He  is  a  good  writer  who  em- 


LAW     OF     ADAPTATION.  XVll 

bodies  in  his  works  the  soul  and  spirit  of  the  times  in 
which  he  Hves,  provided  they  are  worth  embodying — 
and  the  common  sympathy  of  the  great  mass  is  sounder 
criticism  by  far  than  the  rules  of  mere  scholars,  who, 
buried  up  in  their  formulas,  cannot  speak  so  as  to  arrest 
the  attention  or  move  the  heart. 

Adaptation  without  degeneracy  is  the  great  law  to 
be  followed. 

If  the  speech  of  Patrick  Henry  before  the  House  of 
Delegates  had  been  made  when  the  Stamp  Act  first 
began  to  be  discussed,  it  would  have  been  considered 
foolish  bluster;  but  delivered  at  the  very  moment  when 
the  national  heart  was  on  fire,  and  needed  but  a  touch 
to  kindle  it  into  a  blaze,  it  was  the  perfection  of  elo- 
quence. So,  the  speech  that  Sir  Walter  Scott  puts 
into  the  mouth  of  Ephraim  Macbriar,  on  one  of  the 
successful  battle  fields  of  the  Covenanters,  is  in  itself  a 
piece  of  wild  declamation,  but  in  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  delivered,  and  to  secure  the  object 
in  view,  the  truest  oratory.  As  the  young  preacher 
stood,  pale  with  watchings  and  fastings  and  long  im- 
prisonment, and  cast  his  faded  eye  over  the  field  of 
slaughter,  and  over  those  brave  men  whose  brows 
were  yet  unbent  from  the  strife,  he  knew  that  reason 
and  argument  would  be  lost  in  the  swelling  passions 
that  panted  for  action,  and  he  burst  forth  into  a  ha- 
rangue that  thrilled  every  heart,  and  sent  every  hand 
to  its  sword  : — and  when  he  closed,  those  persecuted 
men  "  would  have  rushed  to  battle  as  to  a  banquet, 
and  embraced  death  with  rapture." 

When  the  national  heart  is  heaving  with  excite- 
ment, he  who  would  control  its  pulsations  and  direct 
its  energies,  must  speak  in  the  language  of  enthusiasm. 
The  power  of  an  orator  hes  in  the  sympathy  between 


X viii  thr.ee    departments    of    oratory. 

him  and  the  people.  This  is  the  chord  which  binds 
heart  to  heart,  and  when  it  is  struck,  thousands  burst 
into  tears  or  rouse  into  passion,  hke  a  single  indi- 
vidual. 

If  these  principles  be  true,  it  is  necessary  to  throw 
ourselves  into  the  scenes  of  the  French  Revolution,  in 
order  to  judge  correctly  of  the  orators  who  controlled 
it.  The  Duke  of  Wellington,  addressing  the  English 
army  in  India  in  the  language  Bonaparte  used  to  his 
troops  at  the  base  of  the  Pyramids,  would  be  guilty  of 
ridiculous  bombast ;  but  in  the  mouth  of  the  latter,  and 
to  such  men  as  followed  his  standard,  it  exhibited  the 
true  orator.  Nelson  saying  to  his  crew  before  the 
battle  of  Trafalgar,  "  England  expects  every  man  to 
do  his  duty,"  and  Cromwell  reading  the  Psalms  of 
David  to  his  steel-clad  Ironsides  before  the  battle  of 
Naseby,  present  a  widely  different  appearance,  bat 
show  equal  skill  and  art. 

In  ordinary  times,  there  are  three  great  departments 
of  oratory :  the  bar,  the  parliament,  and  the  pulpit. 
The  latter,  no  doubt,  ought  to  take  the  highest  rank. 
With  three  worlds  for  a  field  from  which  to  gather 
thoughts,  images  and  motives  to  action — with  the  soul 
of  man,  its  hopes,  fears  and  sympathies,  and  awful  des- 
tiny, its  theme — it  embraces  all  that  is  great  and  fear- 
ful and  commanding.  But  in  Catholic  countries  it  has 
sunk  into  neglect.  Hooded  over  and  fettered  by  su- 
perstition, and  wrapped  in  endless  forms,  its  power  is 
lost.  This  country  is  fast  following  in  their  footsteps. 
Inspiration  is  gone,  enthusiasm  derided  or  shunned, 
and  good,  plain  instruction  has  usurped  the  place  of 
eloquence. 

In  the  legislative  hall,  powerful  appeals  to  the  feel- 
ings are  dangerous,  for  the  watchful  eye  of  opposition 


*^'»k 


THE      NATIONAL      ASSEMBLY.  XiX 

is  ever  ready  to  make  bathos  of  pathos.  At  the  bar, 
oratory  is  apt  to  become  mere  acting.  The  habit  cf 
taking  any  side,  and  advocating  directly  opposite  prin- 
ciples, destroys  the  earnestness  of  sincere  feeling,  and 
compels  the  pleader  to  resort  to  art  for  success.  Like 
a  fine  actor,  he  must  study  the  hearts  of  others,  and 
not  trust  to  his  own  impulses,  if  he  would  awaken  sym- 
pathy. 

But  the  advocate  and  the  divine  disappeared  in  the 
French  Revolution,  and  the  press  and  legislative  hall 
were  the  media  through  which  the  soul  of  the  nation 
uttered  itself. 

The  Convention  of  the  States-General,  and  final  or- 
ganization of  the  National  Assembly,  fixed  irretrieva- 
bly the  French  Revolution.  The  deputies  of  the  peo- 
ple, assembled  from  every  quarter  of  France,  found 
themselves  at  the  outset  in  collision  with  the  throne 
and  aristocracy.  The  nation  was  to  be  saved  from 
the  famine,  and  distress,  and  bankruptcy,  which  threat- 
ened to  overthrow  it ;  and  they  boldly  entered  on  the 
task.  They  had  not  come  together  to  speak,  but  to 
act.  Met  at  every  turn  by  a  corrupt  Court  and  nobi- 
hty,  they  found  themselves  compelled  to  spend  months 
on  the  plainest  principles  of  civil  liberty.  But  facts 
were  more  potent  than  words,  and  it  needed  only  an 
eloquent  tongue  in  order  to  bind  the  Assembly  toge- 
ther, and  encourage  it  to  put  forth  those  acts  which 
the  welfare  of  the  nation  demanded. 

It  was  not  easy  at  once  to  destroy  reverence  for  the 
throne,  and  set  at  nought  royal  authority,  yet  the  ref- 
ormations which  the  state  of  the  kingdom  rendered 
imperative  would  do  both.  Right  onward  must  this 
National  Assembly  move,  or  France  be  lost !  To 
carry  it  thus  forward,  united,  strong  and  bold,  one  all- 


XX  MIRABEAU. 

powerful  tongue  was  sufficient, — and  the  great  orator 
of  the  Assembly  was  Mirabeau.  At  the  outset,  hurl- 
ing mingled  defiance  and  scorn  both  on  the  nobility, 
from  whom  he  had  been  excluded,  and  the  king,  who 
thought  to  intimidate  the  deputies,  he  inspired  the 
Tiers- Etat  with  his  own  boldness.  No  matter  what 
vacillation  or  fears  might  agitate  the  members,  when 
his  voice  of  thunder  shook  the  hall  in  which  they  sat, 
every  heart  grew  determined  and  resolute.  With 
his  bushy  black  hair  standing  on  end,  and  his  eye  flash- 
ing fire,  he  became  at  once  the  hope  of  the  people  and 
the  terror  of  the  aristocracy.  Incoherent  and  un- 
wieldy in  the  commencement  of  his  speech,  steady 
and  strong  when  fairly  under  motion,  he  carried  re- 
sistless power  in  his  appeals.  As  a  huge  ship  in  a 
dead  calm  rolls  and  rocks  on  the  heavy  swell,  but  the 
moment  the  wind  fills  its  sails  stretches  proudly  away, 
throwing  the  foam  from  its  front, — so  he  tossed  irreg- 
ular and  blind  upon  the  sea  of  thought,  until  caught  by 
the  breath  of  passion,  when  he  moved  majestically,  ir- 
resistibly onward. 

The  Constituent  Assembly  of  France  sat  from  1789 
*o  1791.  The  overthrow  of  the  Bastile  and  triumph 
3f  the  people  frightened  the  nobility,  so  that  they  fled 
in  crowds  from  France.  Hitherto  they  had  consti- 
tuted the  opposition  against  which  the  deputies  of  the 
people  had  to  struggle.  After  their  flight,  there  being 
no  longer  an  opposition,  the  deputies  naturally  spht 
into  two  parties  among  themselves.  The  Girondists 
were  at  first  the  republicans,  and  demanded  a  govern- 
ment founded  on  the  principles  of  the  ancient  repub- 
lics ;  but  a  faction  springing  up  more  radical  than 
their  own,  and  pushing  the  state  towards  anarchy, 


THE      GIRONDISTS.  XXI 

they  became  conservatives.  In  the  meantime  Mira- 
beau,  full  of  forebodings,  died. 

This  Assembly,  however,  lasted  but  nine  months, 
for  the  revolt  of  the  10th  of  August  came  ;  the  Tuil- 
eries  ran  blood,  and  the  Bourbon  dvnasty  closed.  The 
Legislative  Assembly  then  changed  itself  into  the  Con- 
vention, and  the  great  struggle  between  the  Girondists 
and  Jacobins  commenced.  It  was  a  life  and  death 
struggle,  and  all  the  mental  powers  of  these  two 
bodies  were  brought  to  the  task.  The  Girondists  em- 
braced in  their  number  some  of  the  finest  orators 
France  has  ever  produced.  They  were  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  Revolution,  ever  talking  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  fondly  dreaming  that  the  glorious  days  of 
those  ancient  republics  could  be  recalled.  Their  elo- 
quence had  given  immense  popularity  to  the  Revolu- 
tion and  hastened  it  on.  Grand  and  generous  in  their 
plans,  they  filled  the  imaginations  of  the  people  with 
beautiful  but  unreal  forms.  But  while  they  were  thus 
speaking  of  Cataline  and  Cicero,  and  Brutus  and  Cas- 
sar,  and  the  heroes  of  Greece,  the  Jacobins  were  talk- 
ing of  aristocrats  in  Paris,  and  arousing  the  passions 
rather  than  exciting  the  imaginations  of  men. 

There  could  be  no  combination  of  circumstances 
better  adapted  to  call  forth  the  spirit  and  power  of  the 
nation,  than  that  in  which  France  now  found  herself 
The  fall  of  the  throne,  and  sudden  rising  of  a  republic 
in  its  place — the  removal  of  all  those  restraints  which 
had  for  ages  fettered  thought — the  terrific  events  that 
had  just  passed,  and  the  still  more  terrible  ones  at  the 
door — the  vast  field  opened  at  once  to  the  untried 
powers — the  dark  and  troubled  sea  rolling  around  this 
phantom  republic,  blazing  with  artificial  light ;  nay, 
the  excited  soul  itself— called  on  man  trumpet-tongued, 


XXll         WAKING     UP     THE     FRENCH     MIND. 

to  give  his  greatest  utterance.  Into  this  new  freedom 
the  emancipated  spirit  stepped  with  a  bewildered  look, 
and  stretching  forth  its  arms,  giant-like,  made  every- 
thing hitherto  stable  and  steady,  rock  and  shake  on  its 
ancient  foundations.  Never  before  was  the  human 
mind  roused  to  such  intense  action,  and  never  did  it 
work  with  such  fearful  rapidity  and  awful  power. 
The  hall  of  the  National  Convention  became  the  thea- 
tre of  the  most  exciting  scenes  ever  witnessed  in  a 
lecrislative  bodv.  The  terrible  strus:2:le  between  an- 
cient  despotism  and  young  and  fierce  democracy  had 
closed,  and  the  throne  gone  down  in  the  tumult.  The 
elements  which  had  been  gathering  into  strength  for 
ages — the  swell  which  had  not  been  born  of  a  sudden 
gust  of  passion,  but  came  sweeping  from  the  realms 
of  antiquity  had  burst,  and  there  lay  the  fragments  of 
a  strong  monarchy — the  splendid  wreck  of  a  system 
hoary  with  age  and  rich  with  the  fruits  of  oppression. 
Into  this  chaos  the  soul  of  France  was  cast,  and  be- 
gan to  work  out  its  own  ends.  In  the  meantime, 
Europe,  affrighted  at  the  apparition  .of  a  new  republic 
rising  in  its  midst,  based  on  fallen  kingship,  moved  to 
arms,  and  trusted,  with  one  fell  blow,  to  overthrow  it. 
All  the  great  interests  of  life — everything  that  kindles 
feeling  and  passion — awakens  thought  and  stimulates 
to  action,  were  here  gathered  together;  and  no  wonder 
the  genius  of  France  burst  forth  with  astonishing 
splendor!  Grecian  art  and  learning  were  the  offspring 
of  the  struggle  between  the  young  republic  of  Greece 
and  Persian  despotism  ;  and  out  of  the  desperate  re- 
sistance of  early  Rome  to  the  efforts  put  forth  for 
her  overthrow,  sprung  that  power  which  finally  over- 
shadowed the  earth ;  while  from  our  own  Revolution 
emerged  the  spirit  of  enterprise  of  which  the  history 


VERGNIAUD.  XXIU 

of  the  race  furnishes  no  parallel,  and  those  principles 
destined  to  make  the  tour  of  the  world. 

But  if  the  French  Revolution  gave  birth  to  grand 
displays  of  genius  and  intellect,  it  also  furnished  ex- 
hibitions of  human  depravity  and  ferocity  never  before 
equalled. 

The  chief  leaders  that  entered  this  great  arena,  were 
Robespiere,  Danton,  Marat,  Camille  Desmoulins,  Va- 
rennes,  St.  Just,  and  Collot  d'Herbois,  on  the  side  of 
the  Radicals,  or  Mountain — Vergniaud,  Guadet,  Gen- 
sonne,  Lanjuinais,  ,Roland,   Barbaroux,   Louvet,  and 
others,  on  that  of  the  Girondists.     The  collision  be- 
tween these  noble  and  eloquent  men,  on  the  one  side, 
and  those  dark,  intriguing,  desperate   characters  on 
the  other,  produced  the  finest  specimens  of  oratory 
ever  witnessed  in  France.     Vergniaud,  generous  and 
noble — too  good  to  believe  in  the  irredeemable  de- 
pravity of  his  adversaries — was  the   most  eloquent 
speaker  that  ever  mounted  the  tribune  of  the  French 
Assembly.     Carried  away  by  no  passion — not  torrent- 
like, broken,  and  fragmentary,  as  Mirabeau — but  like 
a  deep  and  majestic  stream,  he  moved  steadily  onward, 
pouring  forth  his  rich  and  harmonious   sentences  in 
strains  of  impassioned  eloquence.      At  the  trial  of 
Louis  his    speech  thrilled  both  Jacobins  and  Conser- 
vatives with  electric   power.      On  the  occasion   of 
the  failure  of  the  first  conspiracy  of   the  Jacobins 
against  the  Girondists,  he  addressed  the  Convention, 
and  in  his  speech  occurred  the  following  remarkable 
words :  "  We  march  from  crimes  to  amnesties,  and 
from  amnesties  to  crimes.     The  great  body  of  citizens 
are  so  blinded  by  their  frequent  occurrence,  that  they 
confound  these  seditious  disturbances  with  the  grand 
national  movement  in  favor  of  freedom — regard  the 


XXIV  L  O  U  V  E  T . 


violence  of  brigands  as  the  efforts  of  energetic  minds, 
and  consider  robbery  itself  as  indispensable  to  public 
safety.  You  are  free,  say  they  ;  but  unless  you  think 
like  us,  w^e  w^ill  denounce  you  as  victims  to  the  ven- 
geance of  the  people.  You  are  free  ;  but  unless  you 
join  us  in  persecuting  those  whose  probity  or  talents 
we  dread,  we  will  abandon  you  to  their  fury.  Citi- 
zens,  there  is  too  much  room  to  dread  that  the  Revolu- 
tion, like  Saturn,  will  necessarily  devour  all  its  pro- 
geny, and  finally  leave  only  despotism,  with  all  the 
calamities  which  it  produces."  A  prophecy  which 
soon  proved  true  ;  and  he  was  among  the  first  of  those 
children  which  the  Revolution,  Saturn-like,  devoured. 
Thrown  into  prison  with  his  compatriots,  he  finally 
underwent  the  farce  of  a  trial,  and  was  sentenced  to 
the  guillotine.  His  friends  had  secretly  provided  him 
with  poison,  by  which  he  could  escape  the  ignominy 
of  the  scaffold,  and  die  a  sudden  and  easy  death.  But 
he  nobly  refused  to  take  it,  preferring  to  suffer  with 
his  friends.  On  the  last  night  of  his  life  he  addressed 
his  fellow-prisoners  on  the  sad  fate  of  the  French 
Republic.  He  spoke  of  its  expiring  liberty,  of  the 
bright  hopes  soon  to  be  extinguished  in  blood,  of 
the  terrible  scenes  before  their  beloved  country,  in 
terms  that  made  the  doomed  victims  forget  their  ap- 
proaching fate.  Never  before  did  those  gloomy  walls 
ring  to  such  thrilling  words.  Carried  away  by  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  feelings,  and  the  picture  that  rose 
before  his  excited  imagination,  he  poured  forth  such 
strains  of  impassioned  eloquence,  that  they  all  fell  in 
tears  in  each  other's  arms. 

Louvet  was  bold  and  energetic,  hurling  his  accusa- 
tions against  Marat  and  Robespierre  with  equal  daring 
and  power.     When  the  latter,  wincing  under  the  im- 


GUADET     AND     BARBAROUX.  XXV 

plied  charges  conveyed  by  Roland  in  a  speech  before 
the  Convention,  mounted  the  Tribune  and  exclaimed : 
"  No  one  will  dare  accuse  me  to  my  face,"  Louvet 
rose  to  his  feet,  and  fixing  on  him  a  steady  eye,  said, 
in  a  firm  voice :  "  /  am  he  who  accuses  you ;  yes, 
Robespierre,  I  accuse  you."  He  then  went  on  in  a 
strain  of  fervid  eloquence,  following  Robespierre,  as 
Cicero  did  Cataline,  in  all  his  devious  ways — to  the 
Jacobin  club,  to  the  municipal  authorities  and  the  As- 
sembly ever  vaunting  of  his  services,  exciting  the 
people  to  massacre,  and  spreading  terror  and  death 
on  every  side — and  closed  up  with  "  the  glory  of  the 
revolt  of  the  10th  of  August  is  common  to  all,  but  the 
glory  of  the  massacres  of  September  2nd  to  you;  on 
you  and  your  associates  may  they  rest  forever^ 

After  the  revolution  which  overthrew  the  Girond- 
ists, he  fled  to  the  mountains  of  Jura,  and  wandered 
for  months  amid  their  solitudes  and  caverns,  pondering 
over  the  strange  scenes  through  which  he  had  passed. 

Guadet  was  full  of  spirit — seizing  with  the  intuition 
of  genius  the  changes  of  the  stormy  Convention  and 
moulding  it  to  his  purpose.  He  died  with  the  firm- 
ness of  an  old  Roman  on  the  scaffold. 

Barbaroux  was  fiery,  prompt  and  penetrating.  Fore- 
seeing clearly  the  course  of  the  Jacobins,  he  strove 
manfully  to  crush  them,  and  would  have  succeeded 
had  he  been  sustained  by  his  friends.  On  that  last 
terrible  day  to  the  Girondists,  when  eighty  thousand 
armed  men  stood  arrayed  in  dark  columns  around  the 
Hall  of  the  Convention,  and  a  hundred  and  sixty  pieces 
of  artillery  were  slowly  advancing  with  lighted  matches 
trembling  above  them,  and  the  tocsin  was  sounding  and 
generale  beating,  and  cannon  thundering  in  the  dis- 
tance, and  the  Convention  tossing  like  a  shattered  ves- 


XXVI  ROBESriERRE     AND     DANTON. 

sel  in  a  storm,  he  rose,  and  sending  his  fearless  voice 
over  the  tempest,  exclaimed;  ^^ I  have  sworn  to  die  at 
my  jjost ;  I  will  keej)  my  oath.  Bend,  if  you  please, 
before  the  Tnunicipality — you  who  refused  to  arrest 
their  wickedness  ;  or  else  imitate  us  whom  their  fury 
immediately  demands  —  wait  and  brave  their  fury. 
You  may  compel  me  to  sink  under  their  daggers — 
you  shall  not  make  me  fall  at  their  feet" 

Roland  clear  and  truthful — Gensonne,  firm,  resolute, 
and  decided — Lanjuinais,  intrepid,  and  fearless,  lifting 
his  voice,  even  when  dragged  by  violence  from  the 
Tribune — Brissot  and  Buzot  helped  to  complete  this 
galaxy  of  noble  and  eloquent  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  Robespierre  combatted  these 
bursts  of  oloquence  by  his  daring  plans — insinuating, 
yet  energetic,  discourse — his  terse,  vigorous  sentences, 
and  his  character  as  a  patriot.  Danton  was  like  a 
roused  lion,  and  his  voice  of  thunder  fell  with  startlinsr 
power  on  the  Convention.  Once  when  he  heard  the 
tocsin  sounding  and  cannon  roaring,  he  said,  all  that  is 
required  is  "boldness, boldness, boldness !"  and  this,  with 
his  relentless  severity,  was  the  secret  of  his  strength. 
Marat,  with  the  face  of  a  monster  and  the  heart  of  a 
fiend,  had  that  art,  or  rather  ferocity,  which  appeals  to 
hate,  murder  and  revenge.  With  such  energetic,  pow- 
erful minds  locked  in  mortal  combat,  no  wonder  there 
were  bursts  of  unsurpassed  eloquence — thrilHng  ap- 
peals, noble  devotion,  such  as  never  before  shook  a 
parliament.  T.he  fact  that  the  Legislative  Assembly 
constituted  one  body,  thus  keeping  the  exciting  topics 
of  this  most  exciting  lime  ever  revolving  in  its  midst, 
conspired  to  give  greater  intensity  to  the  feelings,  and 
preserve  that  close  and  fierce  collision  from  which  fire 
is  always  struck.     In  halls  of  legislation  the  eloquence 


THE     FRENCH     MIND.  XXVll 

of  feeling — the  spontaneous  outbursts  of  passion  con- 
stituting the  highest  kind  of  impassioned  oratory,  are 
seldom  witnessed.  But  here  the  impulses  were  not 
restrained — each  uttered  what  he  felt,  and  that  lofty 
daring  which  will  of  itself  create  genius,  characterized 
the  leaders. 

But  when  the  Jacobins  through  their  appeals  to  the 
passions,  triumphed,  and  the  Girondists  were  dispersed 
or  executed,  the  eloquence  of  the  Convention  departed 
forever.  In  the  Reign  of  Terror,  Danton  was  the 
chief  orator,  but  action,  action  was  w^anted  more  than 
speeches.  To  awe,  to  terrify,  to  crush,  was  now  the 
task  of  the  Convention,  and  it  w^ent  on  destroying  with 
a  blind  fury  until  at  last  it  began  to  destroy  itself  At 
length  it  turned  fiercely  on  Danton  its  head,  and  that 
voice,  after  uttering  its  last  challenge,  hurling  its  last 
curse  and  scorn,  was  hushed  by  the  guillotine.  Robes- 
pierre soon  followed,  and  the  yell  of  terror  he  gave  on 
the  scaffold,  as  the  bandage  was  torn  from  his  maimed 
jaw,  letting  it  fall  on  his  breast,  was  the  last  time  his 
tongue  froze  the  hearts  of  the  people  with  fear. 

The  Revolution  now^  began  to  retrograde,  and  the 
French  mind,  which  had  been  so  terribly  excited,  for 
awhile  stood  paralyzed,  and  the  tongue  was  dumb. 
Nothing:  shows  the  diflTerence  between  the  two  na- 
tions,  France  and  England,  more  clearly  than  the  con- 
trast this  Revolution  presented  to  that  of  the  English 
under  Cromwell.  In  both  the  commons  of  the  people 
came  in  collision  \\\\\\  the  throne,  and  conquered.  In 
both  the  ki]ig  perished  on  the  scaflbld,  and  the  Par- 
liament seized  supreme  power.  Yet  in  the  one  case 
no  atrocity  marked  the  progress  of  freedom — even  civil 
law  remained  in  full  force  amid  the  tumult  and  vio- 
lence before  which  the  royal  dynasty  disappeared. 
The  minds  of  the  two  nations  are  as  different  as  the 


XXVUl  BONAPARTE. 

progress  and  results  of  the  two  Revolutions.  The 
French  excitable  and  imaginative,  no  sooner  seize  a 
theory  than  they  push  it  to  the  extremest  limit.  En- 
thusiasm and  hope  guide  the  movement,  while  reason 
and  conscience  control  the  passions  of  the  English 
people.  One  dreams,  the  other  thinks  ;  hence  to  the 
former,  eloquence  which  appeals  to  the  imagination 
and  feelings  is  the  truest  and  the  best.  The  Tiers- 
Etat,  now  assembled  in  Berlin,  will  not  move  on  to 
freedom  as  did  that  of  France.  The  Germans  are 
more  sober,  reflecting  and  cautious.  This  fact  should 
be  kept  in  mind  in  reading  the  speeches  of  French 
orators.  Those  things  which  would  be  extravagancies 
to  an  English  or  Dutch,  are  not  to  a  French  parlia- 
ment. Bursts  of  sentiment  which  would  draw  tears 
from  the  latter,  would  provoke  a  smile  of  incredulity 
or  derision  in  the  former.  The  mathematician  and 
the  poet  are  to  be  moved  by  different  appeals. 

Under  the  Directory  there  was  but  little  display  of 
eloquence,  and  scarcely  none  at  all  under  the  Empire. 
When  Bonaparte  mounted  to  supreme  power,  he 
wished  to  be  the  only  speaker,  as  he  was  the  only  ac- 
tor, in  France.  He  established  the  strictest  censor- 
ship both  over  the  press  and  the  tongue,  and  men  dared 
not  speak,  except  to  echo  him.  If  France  was  amazed 
at  the  disappearance  of  the  throne  and  aristocracy, 
and  sudden  rising  of  a  republic,  with  all  its  blinding, 
dazzling  light,  in  their  place,  she  was  no  less  so  at  the 
vast  empire  that  sprung  up  so  rapidly  at  the  touch  of 
Napoleon.  Men  spoke  no  more  of  Greece  or  of  Rome, 
except  to  hint  at  Ca3sar  and  his  legions.  "  Rights  of 
the  people,"  "  freedom  of  the  press  and  speech,"  and 
all  those  spell- words  by  which  the  revolutionary  lead- 
ers had  gained  power  were  forgotten,  and  the  "glory 
of  France"  absorbed  every  other  thought.     To  this 


THE     RESTORATION.  XXlX 

boundless  enthusiasm,  Napoleon  knew  how  to  address 
himself,  and  became  at  once  the  greatest  military  ora- 
tor of  the  world.  In  any  other  time,  and  to  any  other 
army,  his  speeches  would  have  been  mere  declama- 
tion, but  taking  both  into  consideration  they  are  models 
of  oratory.  He  could  speak  with  power,  for  his  ac- 
tions were  eloquent,  and  stirred  the  heart  of  France  to 
its  core. 

The  Restoration  brought  a  great  change  over  the 
parliament  of  France.  From  a  constitutional  mon- 
archy she  had  passed  into  a  free  republic,  thence  into 
the  rudest  anarchy  that  ever  shook  the  world,  thence 
into  a  vast  and  glorious  empire,  and  now,  fallen,  ex- 
hausted, and  bewildered,  sunk  back  into  the  arms  of  a 
Bourbon.  And  when  the  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple again  assembled,  there  were  delegates  from  all 
these  great  epochs, — royalist  emigrants,  filled  more 
than  ever  with  the  idea  of  the  divine  right  of  kings — 
old  soldiers  from  Napoleon's  victorious  armies,  still 
dreaming  of  glory — and  ardent  republicans,  who 
would  not,  for  all  that  had  passed,  abandon  their  lib- 
eral principles. 

The  new  Parliament  at  length  settled  down  into 
three  political  parties — the  Legitimists,  who  reverenced 
kingship,  and  prated  constantly  of  the  throne  and  its 
prerogatives,  and  the  aristocracy  and  its  privileges — 
the  Constitutionalists,  or  those  who  wished  to  establish 
the  supremacy  of  the  parliament  balanced  by  royal 
authority  and  other  powers,  as  in  England — and  the 
Liberals.  These  discordant  elements  brought  to  the 
surface  a  group  of  statesmen  and  orators  as  different 
in  their  views  and  opinions,  as  if  they  had  been  men 
of  different  ages  of  the  world.  The  Liberalists  con- 
stituted the  opposition,  and  numbered  among  its  lead- 
ers, Manuel,  General  Foy,  Benjamin  Constant,  Lafitte, 


XXX        PRESENT     FRENCH     PARLIAMENT. 

Bignon,  Casimir-Perier,  and  others.  Under  Charles  X. 
it  was  a  struggle  of  reason  against  blind  devotion  to 
old  rules  and  forms.  At  length  the  last  gave  way — 
Charles  X.  was  compelled  to  abdicate,  and  the  Revo- 
lution of  1830  introduced  a  new  order  of  things,  which 
still  continues. 

It  is  useless  to  speak  of  the  present  Parliament  of 
France.  Like  the  American  Congress,  or  the  British 
ParUament,  it  is  governed  by  the  spirit  of  the  politi- 
cian, rather  than  the  elevated  views  of  the  statesman, 
or  the  devotion  of  the  patriot.  Between  the  different 
parties  it  is  a  struggle  of  tactics  rather  than  of  intel- 
lect— votes  are  carried,  and  changes  wrought,  more 
by  the  power  of  machinery  than  the  power  of  truth 
or  eloquence.  The  Chamber  of  Peers  is  almost  a  nul- 
lity, while  over  that  of  the  deputies  the  politic  Louis 
Philippe  holds  a  strong  and  steady  hand.  Guizot  and 
Thiers  have  occupied  the  most  prominent  place  in  the 
public  eye,  under  the  present  dynasty.  But  the  strat- 
egy of  parliaments  is  now  of  more  consequence  and 
interest  than  their  speeches,  for  management  is  found 
to  secure  votes  better  than  they.  This  is  natural — in 
unexciting  times  everything  assumes  a  business  form 
and  is  conducted  on  business  principles — and  com- 
merce, and  finance,  and  tariff,  and  trade,  are  not  cal- 
culated to  develop  the  powers  of  the  orator,  or  call 
forth  the  highest  kind  of  eloquence. 


1      •>■>•>■)■>       1 


>  ■,,^-,  ■»■»-»  ,T  ^ 


ORATORS    OF    FRANCE. 


CONSTITUENT  ASSEMBLY. 
M I  R  A  B  E  A  U . 

As  Christopher  Columbus,  after  having  traversed  a  vast 
extent  of  ocean,  was  advancing  tranquilly  towards  the  con- 
tinent of  America,  all  of  a  sudden  the  wind  blows,  the  light- 
ning flashes,  the  thunder  mutters,  the  cordage  is  rent,  the 
pilot  alarmed,  and  the  vessel  is  on  the  verge  of  being  lost, 
of  being  engulfed  in  the  waves.  But  Columbus  himself 
while  his  soldiers  and  sailors  gave  themselves  up  to  pra5'er 
and  to  despair,  confiding  in  his  high  destinies,  seized  the  helm, 
steered  through  the  roarings  of  the  tempest  and  the  horrors 
of  the  deep  night,  and  feeling  the  prow  of  his  vessel  ground 
upon  the  shores  of  the  New  World,  he  cried  with  a  loud 
voice  :  "  Land  !  land  !"  So,  when  the  Revolution  was  losing 
its  course  with  started  anchors  and  torn  sails,  upon  a  rocky 
and  tempestuous  sea,  Mirabeau  taking  his  stand  on  the  fore- 
deck,  bade  defiance  to  the  flashing  of  the  thunderbolt,  and 
cheering  the  trembling  passengers,  raised  in  the  midst  of 
them  his  prophetic  voice,  and  pointed  them  out  the  promised 
land  of  liberty. 

All  things  concurred  to  make  Mirabeau  the  grand  poten- 
tate of  the  tribune,  his  peculiar  organization,  his  life,  his 
studies,  his  domestic  broils,  the  extraordinary  times  in  which 
he  appeared,  the  spirit  and  manner  of  deliberation  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  and  the  combination  truly  marvellous 
of  his  oratorical  faculties.  It  is  requisite,  in  an  assembly 
of  twelve  hundred  legislators,  that  the  orator  should  be  dis- 
cernible from  a  distance,  and  IMirabeau  was  discernible 
from  a  distance.     It  is  requisite  that  he  be  audible  from  a 


2  ♦  I  €  0  N  S  TJ.'T  :U''^  '${:T  '.   ASSE3IBLY. 

distance, 'ainq'  M'irab.efiii -was  ;thus  audible.  It  is  requisite 
that  the  details  of  his  physiognomy  should  disappear  in  the 
general  expression,  that  the  internal  man  be  revealed  in 
the  features,  and  that  the  grandeur  of  the  soul  be  trans- 
fused into  the  countenance  and  the  discourse.  But  Mira- 
beau  had  this  general  expression,  .those  features,  that  soul. 
Mirabeau  in  the  tribune  was  the  most  imposing  of  orators : 
an  orator  so  consummate,  that  it  is  harder  to  say  what  he 
wanted  than  what  he  possessed. 

Mirabeau  had  a  massive  and  square  obesity  of  figure,  thick 
lips,  a  forehead  broad,  bony,  prominent ;  arched  eyebrows, 
an  eagle  eye,  cheeks  flat  and  somewhat  flabby,  features  full 
of  pock-holes  and  blotches,  a  voice  of  thunder,  an  enormous 
mass  of  hair,  and  the  face  of  a  lion. 

Born  with  a  frame  of  iron  and  a  temperament  of  flame, 
he  transcended  the  virtues  and  the  vices  of  his  race.  The 
passions  took  him  up  almost  in  his  cradle,  and  devoured  him 
throuo-hout  his  life.  His  exuberant  faculties,  unable  to  work 
out  their  development  in  the  exterior  world,  concentrated 
inwardly  upon  themselves.  There  passed  within  him  an 
agglomeration,  a  laboring,  a  fermentation  of  all  sorts  of  in- 
gredients, like  the  volcano  which  condenses,  amalgamates, 
fuses  and  brays  its  lava  torrents  before  hurling  them  into 
the  air  through  its  flaming  mouth.  Greek  and  Latin  litera- 
ture, foreign  languages,  mathematics,  philosophy,  music,  he 
learned  all,  retained  all,  was  master  of  all.  Fencing,  swim- 
ming, horsmanship,  dancing,  running,  wrestling,  all  exer- 
cises were  familiar  to  him.  The  vicissitudes  which  the  for- 
tunate philosophers  of  the  age  had  merely  depicted,  he  had 
experienced.  He  had  proudly  looked  despotism,  paternal  and 
ministerial,  in  the  face,  without  fear  and  without  submission. 
Poor,  a  fugitive,  an  exile,  an  outlaw,  the  inmate  of  a  prison, 
every  day,  every  hour  of  his  youth  was  a  fault,  a  passion,  a 
study,  a  strife.  Behind  the  bars  of  dungeons  and  bastilles, 
with  pen  in  hand  and  brow  inclined  over  his  books,  he 
stowed  the  vast  repositories  of  his  memory  with  the  richest 
and  most  varied  treasures.     His  soul  was  tempered  and  re- 


MIRABEAU.  3 

tempered  in  his  indignant  attacks  upon  tyranny,  like  those 
steel  weapons  that  are  plunged  in  water,  while  still  red  from 
the  furnace. 

While  the  rest  of  the  aristocratic  youth  were  dissipating 
their  days  in  stupid  and  frivolous  debauchery,  he  was  cour- 
ageously struggling  against  man  and  against  fortune.  His 
soul,  fortified  rather  than  revolted  by  injustice  and  arbitrary 
wrong,  grew  resolute  in  presence  of  obstacles  ;  his  intellect, 
sharpened  by  misfortune,  abounded  in  expedients  and  con- 
trivances. What  variety  of  stratagems !  what  fertility  of 
resources  !  what  height  of  daring  !  what  depth  of  sagacity  ! 
How  escape  from  his  father  ;  from  the  police  ;  from  his  en- 
emies ? — how  fly,  and  by  what  means  ? — how  live  alone  ? — 
how  above  all  support  a  companion  ? — how  obtain  an  ap- 
peal from  his  capital  sentence  ? — how  touch  his  father  to 
compassion,  without  the  preliminary  of  separating  from  his 
mistress? — how  avoid  separating  from  her,  if  he  would  re- 
turn to  his  wife  ? — how  execute  this  separation  without  de- 
grading her,  without  driving  her  to  despair  ? — how  meet 
such  a  succession  of  ever-springing  wants? — how  parry  so 
many  perplexities  of  situation,  so  many  exigencies,  so  many 
delicacies,  so  many  dangers  ? — how  plead  positions  the  con- 
trary of  one  another  without  flaw  of  logic  and  without  breach 
of  morality  ?  He  doubles,  he  multiplies  himself;  he  de- 
fends himself  and  he  attacks  by  turns  ;  he  supplicates,  threat- 
ens ;  he  writes  and  speaks,  speaks  in  his  own  cause  like  a 
lawyer,  without  being  a  lawyer,  better  than  a  lawyer,  in 
short  as  Mirabeau  alone  could  speak.  Immoral  defense,  no 
doubt !  situation  false  and  sophistical ;  days  without  repose, 
nights  without  sleep  ;  tempestuous  life  bestrewn  with  shoals 
and  wrecks ;  efforts  ever  strained,  sometimes  succeeding, 
commonly  failing  !  But  in  a  single  heart,  what  lessons  of 
the  human  heart !  and  in  that  head,  what  elaboration  of 
mind  !  what  fecundation  !  what  fruits  !  How  well  he  could 
adapt  himself,  insinuate  himself,  rise  to  haughtiness,  stoop 
to  humility,  take  every  tone  of  composition,  whether  he 
paints  to  Sophie,  in  lines  of  fire,  the  passionate  torments  of 


4  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

his  soul,  or,  at  a  later  period,  writes  the  people  of  Marseilles 
a  letter  on  the  high  price  of  corn,  which  is  a  little  master- 
piece of  popular  good  sense,  precise  calculation  and  exposi- 
tory simplicity ! 

Every  where,  in  every  thing,  already  Mirabeau  reveals 
himself; — in  his  letters,  in  his  pleadings,  in  his  memorials, 
in  his  treatises  on  arbitrary  imprisonments,  on  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  on  the  privileges  of  the  nobility,  on  the  inequality 
of  distinctions,  on  the  financial  affairs  and  the  situation  of 
Europe :  enemy  of  every  abuse,  vehement,  polemic,  bold 
reformer ;  more  remarkable,  it  is  true,  for  elevation,  hardi- 
hood, and  originality  of  thought,  for  sagacity  of  observation, 
and  vigor  of  reasoning,  than  for  the  graces  of  form  ;  verbose, 
even  loose,  incorrect,  unequal,  but  rapid  and  picturesque  in 
style, — a  spoken,  not  a  written  style,  as  is  that  of  most 
orators.  With  what  masculine  eloquence  he  objurgates  the 
King  of  Prussia  !  "  Do  but  what  the  son  of  your  slave  will 
have  done  ten  times  a  day,  ten  times  better  than  you,  the 
courtiers  will  tell  you  you  have  performed  an  extraordinary 
action.  Give  full  reign  to  your  passions,  they  will  tell  you 
you  do  well.  Squander  the  sweat  and  the  blood  of  your 
subjects  like  the  water  of  the  rivers,  they  will  say  you 
do  well.  If  you  descend  to  avenge  yourself, — you  so  pow- 
erful,— they  will  say  you  do  well.  They  have  said  so,  when 
Alexander,  in  his  drunkenness,  tore  open  with  his  piognard 
the  bosom  of  his  friend.  They  have  said  so,  when  Nero 
assassinated  his  mother." 

Is  not  this  in  the  oratorical  style  ? 

The  orator  is  equally  discovered  in  his  letter  of  thanks 
to  the  Tiers-etat  of  Marseilles.  "  O  Marseilles !  ancient, 
august  city,  asylum  of  liberty,  may  the  regeneration  which 
now  awaits  the  kingdom,  shed  upon  thee  and  thine  all  the 
choicest  of  its  blessings !  Language  fails  me  to  tell  thee 
either  what  I  feel  or  what  I  think  ;  but  a  heart  remains  to 
me, — that  heart  is  inexhaustible,  and  you  have  ardently  and 
enduringly  its  best  wishes  !" 

On  the  other  hand,  is  it  not  a  marvel  to  find  him,  in  times 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U .  5 

SO  backv/ard,  present  already,  in  the  name  of  the  Commons, 
to  the  Assembly  (Etats)  of  Provence,  the  basis  of  universal 
suffrage  and  representative  government  ?  "  When  a  nation 
is  too  numerous  to  come  together  in  a  single  assembly,  it 
forms  several  bodies,  and  the  individuals  of  each  particular 
body  delegate  to  one  of  their  number  the  right  of  voting  in 
their  behalf. — Every  representative  is,  by  consequence,  the 
result  of  election.  The  collection  of  representatives  is  the 
nation,  and  all  those  who  are  not  representatives,  must  have 
been  so,  by  the  fact  alone  that  they  are  represented. — There 
should  not  be  an  individual  in  the  nation  who  is  not  either 
elector  or  electee,  representing  or  represented."  Would  it 
not  be  said  that  Mirabeau  had  already  discovered,  or  rather 
created,  by  an  effort  of  his  precursory  genius,  the  form,  the 
definitions,  and  the  terms  of  political  language  ?  Let  us  re- 
capitulate, for  his  life  has  several  phases ;  let  us  recapitulate 
Mirabeau  at  this  stage  of  his  career. 

He  had  lived  a  life  of  suffering  and  study  in  the  bas- 
tilles, experienced  the  rigors  and  privations  of  exile,  written 
politics,  framed  codes,  pleaded  his  own  causes,  prepared 
memorials,  espoused  the  cause  of  the  multitude,  broken 
with  his  cast,  frequented  the  ministers,  visited  England, 
studied  Switzerland,  resided  in  Holland,  observed  in  Prus- 
sia. At  once  a  man  of  study  and  a  man  of  pleasure,  a 
soldier,  a  prisoner  of  state,  a  victim  of  tyranny,  a  man  of 
letters,  a  statesman,  a  diplomatist,  a  courtier,  a  demagogue ; 
he  had  meditated,  suffered,  compared,  judged,  legislated, 
published  books,  pronounced  orations.  His  parliamentary 
education  had  been  completed,  before  the  Parliament  itself 
was  in  existence.  He  at  the  outset  spoke  fluently  the 
political  dialect,  which  his  colleagues  only  lisped.  He  spoke 
it  better  than  the  advocates  of  the  bar, — better  than  the 
preachers  of  the  pulpit.  He  was  an  orator  before  any  one 
suspected  it,  perhaps  before  even  he  knew  it  himself.  He 
was  destined  to  become  speedily  the  leader,  no  less  than 
the  orator  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  the  prince  of  the 

modern  tribune,  the  very  god  of  eloquence,  and,  to  say  all 

1* 


6  CONSTITUENT      ASSEMBLY. 

in  a  word,  the  grand  impersonation  of  the  Revolution  of 
1789. 

The  Revolution  of  1789  has  been  the  great  event  of 
modern  times.  The  philosophers  by  their  writings,  the 
Parliaments  by  their  resistances,  the  court  by  its  insane 
prodigalities,  the  clergy  by  its  excessive  wealth,  the  people 
by  its  misery,  the  financial  establishment  by  its  bankrupt- 
cies, legislation  by  its  abuses,  civilization  by  its  progress, 
England  and  the  United  States  by  their  example, — all  por- 
tended the  approach  of  a  catastrophe. 

The  old  social  structure  of  our  fathers  had  run  to  decay 
from  top  to  bottom.  As  portions  of  the  edifice  were  strip- 
ped to  be  repaired,  it  was  found  to  be  all  gnawn  by  worms 
and  undermined  by  time.  Accordingly,  as  soon  as  the 
hammer  of  the  demolisher  had  detached  a  few  stones,  the 
walls  shook  throughout,  and  the  fabric  fell  to  pieces.  All 
was  confusion  amid  the  ruins,  when  the  States-General 
were  convoked.  A  general  cry  arose  to  demand,  that  there 
should  no  more  be  divers  stories  superposited  one  upon  an- 
other, neither  spacious  apartments  for  one  or  a  few  persons, 
nor  small  ones  for  a  multitude  of  men ;  that  thenceforth  the 
edifice  should  not  belong  to  a  single  proprietor,  but  to  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  States,  and  that  their  delegates  should 
be  charged  to  provide  for  the  re-construction,  insurance, 
and  furnishing  of  the  new  social  mansion.  Mirabeau  step- 
ped forth  upon  the  course  like  a  giant,  and  the  ground 
trembled  beneath  his  footsteps.  A  noble,  he  leads  to  battle 
the  Tiers-etat  against  the  nobility,  who  had  imprudently 
driven  him  from  their  ranks.  He  compares  himself  to 
Gracchus,  proscribed  by  the  Roman  senate.  "  Thus,"  said 
he,  "  perished  the. last  of  the  Gracchi  by  the  hands  of  the 
patricians.  But,  having  received  the  mortal  blow,  he  flung 
a  handful  of  dust  towards  heaven,  attesting  the  avenging 
gods,  and  from  this  dust  arose  Marius — Marius  less  great 
in  having  exterminated  the  Cimbri,  than  in  having  quelled 
in  Rome  the  aristocracy  of  the  nobility  !"  There  is  not  in 
antiquity  a  passage  more  oratorical.     Furthermore,  all  this 


MIRABEAU.  7 

discourse  is  of  a  high  order  of  eloquence,  and  it  terminates 
with  this  beautiful  prophecy  : 

"  Privileges  must  have  an  end.  but  the  people  is  eternal." 

This  lofty  reply  made  his  adversaries  quake,  and  Mira- 
beau  threw  himself  without  more  reserve  into  the  paths  of 
democracy.  Once  upon  this  ground  he  tempered  it,  he 
solidified  it  under  his  feet,  he  took  his  position,  and  wrestled 
as  the  popular  champion,  against  the  Orders  of  Clergy  and 
Nobility,  with  all  the  power  of  his  logic,  and  all  the  energy 
of  his  indomitable  will. 

It  is  vulgarly  imagined  that  the  force  of  Mirabeau  con- 
sisted in  the  dewlaps  of  his  bullish  neck,  in  the  thick  masses 
of  his  lion-like  hair  ;  that  he  swept  down  his  adversaries  by 
a  swing  of  his  tail ;  that  he  rolled  down  upon  them  with  the 
roarings  and  fury  of  a  torrent ;  that  he  dismayed  them  by 
a  look  ;  that  he  overwhelmed  them  with  the  bursts  of  his 
thunder-like  voice  :  this  is  to  praise  him  for  the  exterior 
qualities  of  port,  voice,  and  gesture,  as  we  would  praise  a 
gladiator  or  a  dramatic  actor ;  it  is  not  to  praise  as  he  ought 
to  be  praised  this  great  orator.  Doubtless  Mirabeau  owed 
a  great  deal,  at  the  outset  of  his  oratorical  career,  to  the 
prestige  of  his  name.  For  he  was  already  master  of  the 
Assembly  by  the  reputation  of  his  eloquence,  before  he  be- 
came so  by  his  eloquence  itself. 

Doubtless  Mirabeau  owed  much  to  that  penetrating,  flex- 
ible, and  sonorous  voice  which  used  to  fill  with  ease  the 
ears  of  twelve  hundred  persons,  to  those  haughty  accents 
which  infused  life  and  passion  into  his  cause,  to  those  im- 
petuous gestures,  which  flung  to  his  afli'ighted  adversaries 
defiances  that  dared  them  to  reply.  Doubtless  he  owed 
much  to  the  inferiority  of  his  rivals  ;  for  in  his  presence  the 
other  celebrities  Vv'ere  effaced,  or  rather  they  were  grouped 
as  satellites  about  this  magnificent  luminary  only  to  render 
it,  by  the  contrast,  of  a  more  vivid  effulgence.  The  able 
Maury  was  but  an  elegant  rhetorician ;  Cazales,  a  fluent 
speaker  -,   Sieyes,  a  taciturn  metaphysician  -,   Thouret,  a 


8  CONSTITUENT      ASSEMBLY. 

jurist ;  Barnave,  a  hope.  But  what  established  his  un- 
rivalled dominion  ov.cr  the  Assembly  was,  in  the  first  place, 
the  enthusiastical  predisposition  of  the  Assembly  itself;  it 
was  the  multitude  and  the  concurrence  of  his  astonishing 
faculties,  his  productive  facility,  the  immensity  of  his  studies 
and  his  knowledge ;  it  was  the  grandeur  and  breadth  of  his 
political  views,  the  solidity  of  his  reasoning,  the  elaborate- 
ness and  profundity  of  his  discourses,  the  vehemence  of  his 
improvisations,  and  the  pungency  of  his  repartees. 

How  different  those  times  from  ours  !  The  whole  popu- 
lation of  Paris  used  to  mingle  breathlessly  in  the  discus- 
sions of  the  legislature.  One  hundred  thousand  citizens 
filled  the  Tuileries,  the  Place  Vendome,  the  streets  adjacent, 
and  copied  bulletins  were  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  circu- 
lated, thrown  among  the  crowd,  containing  the  occurrences 
of  each  moment  of  the  debate.  There  was  then  some  pub- 
lic life  and  spirit.  The  nation,  the  citizens,  the  Assembly, 
were  all  in  expectation  of  some  great  events,  all  full  of  that 
electric  and  vague  excitement  so  favorable  to  the  exhibitions 
of  the  tribune  and  the  triumphs  of  eloquence.  We,  who 
live  in  an  epoch  without  faith  or  principles,  devoured  as  we 
are  from  head  to  foot  with  the  leprosy  of  political  material- 
ism— we,  Assemblies  of  manikins  who  inflate  ourselves 
like  the  mountain  in  labor,  to  bring  forth  but  a  mouse — we, 
seekers  of  jobs,  of  ministerial  office,  of  ribbons,  epaulettes, 
collectorships  and  judgeships — we,  a  race  of  brokers  and 
stockjobbers,  of  Playtian  or  Neapolitan  three  or  five  per 
cent — we,  men  of  court,  of  police,  of  coteries,  of  all  sorts 
of  times,  of  all  sorts  of  governments,  of  all  sorts  of  journal- 
ism, of  all  sorts  of  opinion — we,  deputies  of  a  parish  or  of  a 
fraternity  ;  deputies  of  a  harbor,  of  a  railroad,  of  a  canal, 
of  a  vineyard  ;  deputies  of  sugar-cane  or  beet-root ;  depu- 
ties of  oil  or  of  bitumen  ;  deputies  of  charcoal,  of  salt,  of 
iron,  of  flax ;  deputies  of  bovine,  equine,  asinine  interests ; 
deputies,  in  short,  of  all  things  except  of  France,  we  shall 
never  be  able  to  comprehend  all  that  there  was  in  that 
famous    Constituent    Assembly    of   deep    conviction    and 


MIR  A  BEAU.  9 

thorough  sincerity,  of  simplicity  of  heart,  of  singleness  of 
purpose,  of  virtue,  of  disinterestedness,  and  of  veritable 
grandeur. 

No,  one  would  have  said  there  existed  then  in  this  As- 
sembly and  this  nation  of  our  fathers,  no  men  of  mature 
years  who  had  experienced  the  evil  days  of  despotism,  none 
of  old  age  who  remembered  the  past.  All  was  generous 
self-sacrifice,  patriotic  enthusiasm,  raptures  of  liberty,  bound- 
less aspirations  after  a  happier  future.  It  was  as  a  beauti- 
ful sun  which  dissolves  the  clouds  of  spring,  warms  the  fro- 
zen limbs,  and  gilds  every  object  with  its  pure  and  genial 
light.  The  nation,  youthful  and  dreamy,  had  imaginings  of 
distant  voices  invitins:  it  to  the  loftiest  destinies.  It  had  fits 
of  trembling,  of  tears,  of  smiles,  like  a  mother  in  the  de- 
livery of  her  first-born  child.  It  was  the  Revolution  in  the 
cradle. 

Our  present  Chambers  are  so  many  little  chapels,  where 
each  one  places  his  own  image  upon  the  altar,  chants  mag- 
nificates,  and  pays  adoration  to  himself.  Our  present  ora- 
tors are  generally  but  officers  without  soldiers.  They  re- 
present but  obsolete  opinions,  decayed  and  dying  parties, 
fractions  of  fractions,  if  not  of  units.  They  are  never 
heard  of  beyond  the  range  of  their  voice.  They  have  no 
influence  upon  the  public. 

On  the  contrary,  Mirabeau  represented  and  conducted  an 
era.  We  seem  to  see  him  still  in  the  stormy  night  of  the 
past,  standing  on  the  mountain,  like  another  Moses,  amid 
thunder  and  lio-htninsr,  bearinfj  the  tables  of  the  law  in  his 
hands,  and  his  brow  encircled  with  a  halo  of  flame,  until  he 
disappears  into  the  depths  of  the  shade  which  rises  and 
wraps  him. 

It  is  at  the  voice  of  Mirabeau  that  the  States-General  as- 
semble. It  is  by  the  light  of  his  torch  they  begin  their 
march.  The  Order  of  the  Nobility  separate  violently  and 
revolt.  Mirabeau  moderates,  by  his  forbearance,  the  hot- 
headedness  of  the  Tlers-Etat.  He  flatters,  he  courts,  he 
honors  the  minority  of  the  Clergy,  for  the  purpose  of  win- 


10  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

ning  it  to  his  side  ;  he  ascribes  to  the  King  his  own  tlioughts, 
to  intimidate  the  Nc^bles.  Then,  after  he  has  by  little  and 
little  infused  confidence  into  the  timid  burgesses  {bourgeois) 
of  the  Commons — at  first  astonished  at  the  temerity  of  their 
undertaking — he  dazzles  them  of  a  sudden  with  the  title 
of  Representative  of  the  people.  They  are  no  longer  a 
fraction  of  the  Assembly — not  even  the  largest — but  the 
whole  Assembly.  The  orders  of  the  Clergy  and  of  the  No- 
bles are  about  to  fade  and  be  absorbed,  like  feeble  rays  in 
the  blaze  of  the  national  majesty. 

"  What !  need  I,"  says  he,  ''  demonstrate  that  the  division 
of  Orders,  that  debate  and  deliberation  by  Order,  would  be 
a  contrivance  truly  sublime  for  the  purpose  of  establishing 
constitutionally  selfishness  in  the  priesthood,  pride  in  the- 
aristocracy,  baseness  in  the  people,  confusion  among  all  in- 
terests, corruption  in  all  classes,  cupidity  in  every  soul,  the 
insignificance  of  the  nation,  the  impotence  of  the  prince, 
the  despotism  of  the  ministry  ?" 

It  was  not  enough  for  Mirabeau  to  have,  by  an  able  ma- 
noeuvre, separated  the  forces  and  sundered  the  union  of  the 
two  dissenting  orders,  to  have  sanctioned  the  permanence  of 
insurrection  by  the  personal  inviolability  of  the  insurgents, 
in  fine,  to  have  obtained  a  decreeal  of  the  unity,  indivisi- 
bility, and  sovereignty  of  the  Constituent  Assembly — rit  was 
further  necessary  to  find  for  this  sovereignty  occupation  and 
authority. 

The  Court,  by  its  insane,  arbitrary  and  prodigal  creation 
of  imposts,  and  the  Nobles  and  Clergy,  by  their  refusal  to 
contribute,  had  piled  up  the  public  debt  and  precipitated  the 
ruin  of  the  finances.  The  evil  bore  within  itself  the  rem- 
edy, remedy  still  more  of  a  political  than  a  financial  nature, 
remedy  which  could  cure  the  nation  only  in  as  far  as  it  should 
be  applied  by  its  own  hands.  This  remedy  was  the  pre- 
vious voting  of  all  taxation  by  the  people.  But  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly  represented  the  people.  Therefore,  by 
refusing  the  supplies,  it  could  arrest  the  government,  as 
we  dismount  the  spring  of  a  clock,  as  the  axle-tree  is  de- 


M  IR  AB  E  AU.  11 

tached  from  the  whirling  chariot.  With  the  refusal  of  the 
impost  proposed  by  Mirabeau,  the  Revolution  was  already 
accomplished. 

Our  fathers  cast  their  works  in  brass,  we  scrape  ours  upon 
glass.  They  wisely  looked  for  resemblances,  we  foolishly 
amalgamate  contraries.  They  invented,  we  copy.  They 
were  architects,  we  are  but  masons.  Since  Mirabeau,  we 
have  scarce  done  anything  but  retrograde  in  political  sci- 
ence ;  and  if  they  doubt  this,  let  them  read  Uie  Declaration 
of  the  Rights  of  Man,  by  Mirabeau.     It  contained  : 

The  equality  and  the  liberty  of  all  men  by  right  of  birth. 
— The  establishment,  modification  and  periodic  revision  of 
the  Constitution  by  the  people  ;  the  Law,  the  expression  of 
the  general  will ;  the  delegation  of  the  legislative  power  to 
representatives  frequently  renewed,  legally  and  freely  elect- 
ed, always  existing,  annually  assembled,  and  inviolable. 

The  infallibility  of  the  King,  and  the  responsibility  of 
the  ministers. 

The  liberty  of  others,  the  limit  of  the  liberty  of  each. 

The  liberty  of  the  person,  and  by  way  of  guarantee,  the 
publicity  of  the  charge,  the  proceedings  and  the  judgment, 
the  priority  and  gradation  of  penalties. 

The  liberty  of  thought,  by  speech,  writing,  or  printing,  sub- 
ject to  the  repression  of  abuse. 

The  liberty  of  worship,  subject  to  the  police. 

The  liberty  of  political-  association,  subject  to  municipal 
surveillance. 

The  liberty  of  locomotion  from  the  interior  to  other  coun- 
tries. 

The  liberty  of  property,  commerce,  and  labor. 

The  expropriation  of  private  property  for  public  use, 
providing  a  just  indemnity. 

The  previous  voting,  the  proportional  equality,  the  mo- 
rality, justice,  and  moderation  of  taxation. 

The  establishment  of  a  regular  accountability,  econoniy 
in  expen4itures,  moderate  salaries,  and  the  abolition  of  per- 
quisites and  sinecures. 


12  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

The  admissibility  of  every  citizen  to  the  offices  civil, 
ecclesiastical,  military. 

The  subordination  of  the  military  to  the  civil  authorities. 

Resistance  to  oppression. 

The  Declaration  of  Rights  was  a  magnificent  prologue 
to  the  Constitution,  like  those  porches  with  which  the  an- 
cients adorned  the  temples  of  their  gods.  It  was  a  political 
declaration  full  of  grandeur  and  majesty,  a  synopsis  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  philosophers  and  publicists  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  an  imitation  of  the  American  constitution.  The 
French  genius  loves  to  generalize,  and  in  the  fluctuating 
disorder  of  opinions,  it  was  necessary  to  have  a  rallying 
point,  a  basis  of  discussion.  The  preamble  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  1793,  and  the  charters  of  1814  and  1880  are,  in 
many  respects,  but  the  reproduction,  democratized  or  aris- 
tocratized,  of  Mirabeau's  "  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of 
Man." 

The  speeches  of  Mirabeau  are  commonly  but  the  eloquent 
commentary  of  his  Declaration  of  Rights.  He  was  not 
content,  this  bold  innovator,  with  discovering  new  coasts  and 
erecting  upon  them  a  few  landmarks.  He  built  v/alls  and 
cities,  and  beneath  the  rubbish  and  ruins  of  so  many  consti- 
tutions which  have  since  crumbled  upon  one  another,  we 
find  still  this  day  the  granite  foundations  whereupon  they 
v/ere  raised. 

He  sowed  profusely  in  his  comprehensive  course,  all  the 
just  and  sacred  maxims  of  representative  government — the 
sovereignty  of  the  people  ;  the  delegation  of  powers ;  the 
veto,  the  independence,  responsibility,  and  countersignature 
of  the  ministers;  the  grand  jury;  the  equality  of  taxation. 
He  advocates  the  liberty  of  the  press,  of  religious  worship, 
of  the  individual,  of  locomotion  ;  amotion  from  office ;  the 
constitution  of  municipalities  and  courts  of  justice  ;  the 
establishment  of  the  National  Guard  and  of  the  Jury  ;  the 
variability  of  the  civil  list,  and  its  reduction  to  a  million 
of  income  ;  exemption  from  taxes  of  the  necessitous  classes  ; 
uniformity  of  the  currency  and  the  decimal  calculation  ; 


M  IR  A  B  E  AU.  13 

the  liberty  of  peaceful  and  unarmed  associations ;  the  se- 
crecy of  letters ;  the  frequent  and  periodic  renewal  of  the 
legislature ;  the  annual  vote  of  the  army  estimates ;  the 
pecuniary  responsibility  of  the  collectors,  and  the  penal  re- 
sponsibility of  the  communes ;  the  passports  to  deputies ; 
the  sale  of  national  property ;  the  verification  of  parliamen- 
tary powers  by  the  Parliament ;  the  employment  of  armed 
force  at  the  requisition,  and  in  presence  of  the  municipal 
officers  elected  by  the  people  ;  houses  of  paternal  correc- 
tion ;  martial  law  ;  equality  of  successions ;  the  legal  pre- 
sence, and  the  right  of  interrogating  the  ministers  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Assembly  ;  the  denomination  of  the  depart- 
ments; a  civic  education.  He  opposed  the  peremptory 
mandates,  the  duality  of  the  Chambers ;  the  immutability 
of  the  church  property  ;  the  initiative  direct  and  personal 
of  the  King ;  the  lottery  system  ;  the  permanence  of  the 
districts. 

One  is  surprised,  recoils  affrighted,  before  the  gigantic 
works  accomplished  by  Mirabeau  during  the  two  years  of 
his  parliamentary  life.  Elaborate  discourses,  apostrophes, 
replies,  motions,  addresses,  letters  to  constituents,  newspaper 
controversy,  reports,  morning  sessions,  evening  sessions, 
committee  business,  he  participates  in  all,  superintends  all. 
Nothing  for  him  was  too  great,  nothing  too  little  ;  nothing  too 
complex,  and  nothing  too  simple.  He  bears  upon  his 
shoulders  a  world  of  labors,  and  seems,  in  that  Herculean 
career,  to  experience  neither  fatigue  or  distaste.  He  un- 
ravelled with  perfect  case  the  most  complicated  difficulties, 
and  his  restless  activity  exhausted  the  whole  circle  of  sub- 
jects, without  being  able  to  satisfy  itself  He  kept  occupied 
all  at  the  same  time  his  numerous  friends,  his  constituents, 
his  agents,  his  secretaries.  He  conversed,  debated,  listened, 
dictated,  read,  compiled,  wrote,  declaimed,  maintained  a  cor- 
respondence with  all  France.  He  digested  the  labors  of  others, 
assimilating  them  so  as  that  they  became  his  own.  He  used 
to  receive  notes  as  he  ascended  the  tribune,  in  the  tribune 
even,  and  pass  them,  without  pausing,  into  the  texture  of 

2 


14  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

« 

his  discourse.  He  retouched  the  harangues  and  reports 
of  which  he  had  given  the  frame,  the  plan,  the  idea. 
He  chastened  them  with  his  practised  judgment,  colored 
them  with  his  vivid  expressions,  strengthened  them  with  his 
vigorous  thought.  This  sublime  plagiarist,  this  grand  mas- 
ter, employed  his  aids  and  his  pupils  to  extract  the  marble 
from  the  quarry  and  chip  off  the  grosser  parts,  like  the 
statuary  who,  when  the  block  is  rough-hewn,  approaches, 
takes  his  chisel,  gives  it  respiration  and  life,  and  makes  it  a 
hero  or  a  god. 

Mirabeau  had  a  perfect  understanding  of  the  mechanism 
and  the  rights  of  a  deliberative  body.  He  knew  how  far 
it  may  go  and  where  it  should  stop.  His  disciplinary  for- 
mulas have  passed  into  our  rules,  his  maxims  into  our  laws, 
his  counsels  into  our  policy.  His  words  were  law.  He 
presided  as  he  spoke,  with  a  grave  dignity,  and  used  to  re- 
ply to  the  several  deputations  with  such  fertility  of  elo- 
quence and  felicity  of  language,  that  it  may  be  truly  said 
the  Constituent  Assembly  has  never  been  better  represented 
than  by  Mirabeau,  whether  in  the  chair  of  the  president  or 
in  the  tribune  of  the  orator.  What  a  grand  conception  he 
formed  of  the  national  representation  when  saying:  "Every 
deputation  from  the  people  astounds  my  courage."  It  was 
with  these  holy  emotions  he  approached  the  tribune. 

Mirabeau  used  to  premeditate  most  of  his  discourses. — 
His  comparison  of  the  Gracchi,  his  allusion  to  the  Tar- 
peian  rock,  his  apostrophe  to  Sieyes,  his  famous  speeches 
on  the  constitution,  on  the  right  of  war  and  peace,  the  royal 
veto,  the  property  of  the  Clergy,  the  lottery,  the  mines,  bank- 
ruptcy, the  assignats,  slavery,  national  education,  the  law 
of  successions,  where  he  displays  such  treasures  of  science 
and  profound  elaboration  of  thought — all  these  are  written 
pieces. 

His  manner  as  an  orator  is  that  of  the  great  masters  of 
antiquity,  with  an  admirable  energy  of  gesture  and  a  vehe- 
mence of  diction  which  perhaps  they  had  never  reached. 
He  is  strong,  because  he  does  not  diffuse  himself;  he  is 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  15 

natural,  because  he  uses  no  ornaments  ;  he  is  eloquent, 
because  he  is  simple  ;  he  does  not  imitate  others,  because 
he  needs  but  to  be  himself;  he  does  not  surcharge  his  dis- 
course with  a  baggage  of  epithets,  because  they  would  retard 
it ;  he  does  not  run  into  digressions,  for  fear  of  wandering 
from  the  question.  His  exordiums  are  sometimes  abrupt, 
sometimes  majestic,  as  it  comports  with  the  subject.  His  nar- 
ration of  facts  is  clear.  His  statement  of  the  question  is  pre- 
cise and  positive.  His  ample  and  sonorous  phraseology  much 
resembles  the  spoken  phraseology  of  Cicero.  He  unrolls, 
with  a  solemn  slowness,  the  folds  of  his  discourse.  He 
does  not  accumulate  his  enumerations  as  ornaments,  but  as 
proofs.  He  seeks  not  the  harmony  of  words,  but  the  con- 
catenation of  ideas.  He  does  not  exhaust  a  subject  to  the 
dregs,  he  takes  but  the  flower.  Would  he  dazzle,  the  most 
brilliant  images  spring  up  beneath  his  steps  ;  would  he 
touch,  he  abounds  in  raptures  of  emotion,  in  tender  persua- 
sions, in  oratorical  transports  which  do  not  conflict  with,  but 
sustain,  which  are  never  confounded  with,  but  follow,  each 
other,  which  seem  to  produce  one  another  successively  and 
flow  with  a  happy  disorder  from  that  fine  and  prolific 
nature. 

But  when  he  comes  to  the  point  in  debate,  when  he  enters 
the  heart  of  the  question,  he  is  substantial,  nervous,  logical 
as  Demosthenes.  He  advances  in  a  serried  and  impenetra- 
ble order.  He  reviews  his  proofs,  disposes  the  plan  of 
attack,  and  arrays  them  in  order  of  battle.  Mailed  in  the 
armor  of  dialectics,  he  sounds  the  charge,  rushes  upon  the 
adversaries,  seizes  and  prostrates  them,  nor  does  he  loose 
his  hold  till  he  compels  them,  knee  on  neck,  to  avow 
themselves  vanquished.  If  they  retreat,  he  pursues,  at- 
tacks them  front  and  rear,  presses  upon  them,  drives  them, 
and  brings  them  inevitably  within  the  imperial  circle 
which  he  had  designated  for  their  destruction ;  like  those 
who,  upon  the  deck  of  a  narrow  vessel,  captured  by  board- 
ing  her,  place  a  hopeless  enemy  between  their  sword  and 
the  ocean. 


16  CONSTITUENT      ASSEMBLY. 

How  his  language  must  have  surprised  by  its  novelty, 
and  thrilled  the  popular  heart,  when  he  drew  this  picture 
of  a  legal  constitution  : — 

"  Too  often  are  bayonets  the  only  remedy  applied  to  the 
convulsions  of  oppression  and  want.  But  bayonets  never 
re-establish  but  the  peace  of  terror,  the  silence  of  despotism. 
Ah  !  the  people  are  not  a  furious  herd  which  must  be  kept 
in  chains  !  Always  quiet  and  moderate,  when  they  are 
truly  free,  they  are  violent  and  unruly  but  under  those 
governments  where  they  are  systematically  debased  in 
order  to  have  a  pretext  to  despise  them.  When  we  con- 
sider what  must  result  to  the  happiness  of  twenty-five 
millions  of  men,  from  a  legal  constitution  in  place  of  minis- 
terial caprices, — from  the  consent  of  all  the  wills  and  the 
co-operation  of  all  the  lights  of  the  nation  in  the  improvement 
of  our  laws,  from  the  reform  of  abuses,  from  the  reduction 
'of  taxes,  from  economy  in  the  finances,  from  the  mitigation 
of  the  penal  laws,  from  regularity  -of  procedure  in  the  tri- 
bunals, from  the  abolition  of  a  multitude  of  servitudes  which 
shackle  industry  and  mutilate  the  human  faculties,  in  a 
word,  from  that  grand  system  of  liberty,  which,  planted  on 
the  firm  basis  of  freely-elected  municipalities,  rises  gradu- 
ally to  the  provincial  administrations,  and  receives  its  com- 
pletion from  the  annual  recurrence  of  the  States-General — 
when  we  weigh  all  that  must  result  from  the  restoration  of 
this  vast  empire,  who  does  not  feel  that  the  greatest  of  crimes, 
the  darkest  outrage  against  humanity,^  would  be  to  ofier 
opposition  to  the  rising  destiny  of  our  country  and  thrust 
her  back  into  the  depths  of  the  abyss,  there  to  hold  her 
oppressed  beneath  the  burthen  of  all  her  chains." 

With  what  accuracy,  with  what  nicety  of  observation  he 
enumerates  the  difficulties  of  the  civil  and  military  adminis- 
tration of  Bailly  and  Lafayette  when  he  proposes  to  vote 
them  the  thanks  of  the  Assembly  : — 

"  What  an  administration  !  what  an  epoch,  where  all  is 
to  be  feared  and  all  to  be  braved  !  when  tumult  begets 
tumult,  when  an  affray  is  produced  by  the  very  means  taken 


MIR  AB  E  AU.  17 

to  prevent  it : — vv'hcii  moderation  is  unceasingly  necessary, 
and  moderation  appears  pusillanimity,  timidity,  treason — 
when  you  are  beset  with  a  thousand  counsels,  and  yet  must 
take  your  own — when  all  persons  are  to  be  dreaded,  even 
citizens  whose  intentions  are  pure,  but  whom  distrust,  ex. 
citemcnt,  exaggeration,  render  almost  as  formidable  as  con- 
spirators— when  one  is  obliged,  even  in  critical  circum- 
stances, to  yield  up  his  wisdom,  to  lead  anarchy  in  order  to 
repress  it,  to  assume  an  employment  glorious,  it  is  true,  but 
environed  with  the  most  harassing  alarms — when  it  is  ne- 
cessary besides,  in  the  midst  of  such  and  so  many  difficul- 
ties, to  show  a  serene  countenance,  to  be  always  calm,  to 
enforce  order  even  in  the  smallest  details,  to  offend  no  one, 
to  heal  all  jealousies,  to  serve  incessantly  and  seek  to  please, 
but  without  the  appearance  of  being  a  servant !" 

When  M.  Neckar,  minister  of  finance,  asked  the  Assem- 
bly for  a  vote  of  confidence,  Mirabeau,  in  order  to  carry  it 
by  storm,  displayed  all  the  irony  of  his  eloquence  and  all 
the  might  of  his  logic ;  and  when  he  saw  the  auditory 
shaken,  he  hurled  against  bankruptcy  the  following  fulmi- 
nations : — 

"  Oh  !  if  declarations  less  solemn  did  not  guarantee  our 
respect  for  the  public  faith,  our  horror  of  the  infamous  word 
Bankruptcy,  I  should  say  to  those  who  familiarize  them- 
selves perhaps  with  the  idea  of  repudiating  the  public  en- 
gagements, through  fear  of  excessive  sacrifices,  through 
terror  of  taxation  : — '  What,  then,  is  bankruptcy,  if  it  is 
not  the  crudest,  the  most  iniquitous,  the  most  disastrous  of 
imposts  ?     My  friends,  listen  to  me,  a  word,  a  single  word  ! 

"  '  Two  centuries  of  depredation  and  robbery  have  exca- 
vated the  abvss  wherein  the  kinsfdom  is  on  the  verg-e  of  heing- 
engulfed.  This  frightful  gulf  it  is  indispensable  to  fill 
up.  Well,  here  is  a  list  of  the  proprietors.  Choose  from 
among  the  richest,  so  as  to  sacrifice  the  smallest  number 
of  the  citizens.  But  choose  !  for  is  it  not  expedient  that  a 
small  number  perish  to  save  the  mass  of  the  people  ?  Come — 
these  two  thousand  notables  possess  wherewith  to  supply 

2* 


18  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY 

the  deficit.  Restore  order  to  our  finances,  peace  and  pros- 
perity to  the  kingdom.  Strike,  and  immolate  pitilessly  these 
melancholy  victims,  precipitate  them  into  the  abyss;   it  is 

about  to  close What,  you  recoil  with  horror  !  .  . 

.  .  .  Inconsistent,  pusillanimous  men  !  And  do  you  not  see 
that  in  decreeing  bankruptcy — or,  what  is  more  odious  still, 
in  rendering  it  inevitable  without  decreeing — you  disgrace 
yourselves  with  an  act  a  thousand  times  more  criminal ; 
for,  in  fact,  that  horrible  sacrifice  would  remove  the  deficien- 
cy. But  do  you  imagine,  that  because  you  refuse  to  pay,  you 
shall  cease  to  owe  ?  Do  you  think  the  thousands,  the  mil- 
lions of  men  who  will  lose  in  an  instant,  by  the  dreadful  ex- 
plosion or  its  revulsions,  all  that  constituted  the  comfort  of 
their  lives,  and  perhaps  their  sole  means  of  subsistence,  will 
leave  you  in  the  peaceable  enjoyment  of  your  crime  ? 
Stoical  contemplators  of  the  incalculable  woes  which  this 
catastrophe  will  scatter  over  France  ;  unfeeling  egotists, 
who  think  these  convulsions  of  despair  and  wretchedness 
will  pass  away  like  so  many  others,  and  pass  the  more 
rapidly  as  they  will  be  the  more  violent,  are  you  quite  sure 
that  so  many  men  without  bread  will  leave  you  tranquilly  to 
luxuriate  amid  the  viands  which  you  will  have  been  unwilling 

to  curtail  in  either  variety  or  delicacy  ? No,  you 

will  perish  ;  and  in  the  universal  conflagration,  which  you 
do  not  tremble  to  kindle,  the  loss  of  your  honor  will  not  save 
you  a  single  one  of  your  detestable  luxuries !  Vote,  then, 
this  extraordinary  subsidy,  and  may  it  prove  sufficient ! 
Vote  it,  because  the  class  most  interested  in  the  sacrifice 
which  the  government  demands,  is  you  yourselves  !  Vote 
it,  because  the  public  exigencies  allow  of  no  evasion,  and 
that  you  will  be  "responsible  for  every  delay  !  Beware  of 
asking  time  ;  misfortune  never  grants  it.  What !  gentlemen, 
in  reference  to  a  ridiculous  movement  of  the  Palais-Royal, 
a  ludicrous  insurrection  which  had  never  any  consequence 
except  in  the  weak  imaginations  or  the  wicked  purposes  of  a 
few  designing  men,  you  have  heard  not  long  since  these  in- 
sane cries :  Cataline  is  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  and  you  de- 


MIRABEAU.  19 

liberate  /     And  assuredly,  there  was  around  you  neither 

Cataline,  nor  danger,  nor  factions,  nor  Rome But 

to-day,  bankruptcy,  hideous  bankruptcy,  is  there  before  you. 
It  threatens  to  consume  you,  your  country,  your  property, 
your  honor! And  you  deliberate  !' " 

This  is  as  beautiful  as  it  is  antique. 

Mirabeau  in  his  premeditated  discourses  was  admirable. 
But  what  was  he  not  in  his  extemporaneous  effusions  ?  His 
natural  vehemence,  of  which  he  repressed  the  flights  in  his 
prepared  speeches,  broke  down  all  barriers  in  his  improvi- 
sations. A  sort  of  nervous  irritability  gave  then  to  his 
whole  frame  an  almost  preternatural  animation  and  life. 
His  breast  dilated  with  an  impetuous  breathing.  His  lion 
face  became  wrinkled  and  contorted.  His  eyes  shot  forth 
flame.  He  roared,  he  stamped,  he  shook  the  fierce  mass  of 
his  hair,  all  whitened  with  foam  ;  he  trod  the  tribune  with 
the  supreme  authority  of  a  master,  and  the  imperial  air  of  a 
king.  What  an  interesting  spectacle  to  behold  him,  mo- 
mently, erect  and  exalt  himself  under  the  pressure  of  obsta- 
cle !  To  see  him  display  the  pride  of  his  commanding  brow  ! 
To  see  him,  like  the  ancient  orator,  when,  with  all  the  pow- 
ers of  his  unchained  eloquence,  he  was  wont  to  sway  to  and 
fro  in  the  Forum  the  ajxitated  waves  of  the  Roman  multitude  ! 
Then  would  he  throw  by  the  measured  notes  of  his  decla- 
mation, habitually  grave  and  solemn.  Then  would  escape 
him  broken  exclamations,  tones  of  thunder,  and  accents  of 
heart-rending  and  terrible  pathos.  He  concealed  with  the 
flesh  and  color  of  his  rhetoric  the  sinewy  arguments  of  his 
dialectics.  He  transported  the  Assembly,  because  he  was 
himself  transported.  And  yet — so  extraordinary  was  his 
force — he  abandoned  himself  to  the  torrent  of  his  eloquence, 
without  wandering  from  his  course  ;  he  mastered  others  by 
its  sovereign  sway,  without  losing  for  an  instant  his  own 
self-control. 

His  improvisations,  whether  from  rapid  exhaustion,  or 
rather  instinct  of  his  art,  were  brief.  He  knew  that  strong 
emotions  lose  their  effect  by  duration — that  it  is  unwise  to 


20  CONSTITUENT      ASSEMBLY. 

leave  the  enthusiasm  of  friends  the  time  to  cool,  or  the  ob- 
jections of  adversaries  time  for  preparation — that  people  soon 
come  to  laugh  at  the  thunder  which  rumbles  in  the  air  with- 
out producing  a  bolt,  and  that  an  antagonist  should  be  struck 
down  promptly,  like  the  cannon  ball  which  kills  at  a  blow. 

It  was  contended  the  Assembly  ought  not  to  have  the  ini- 
tiative in  the  impeachment  of  the  ministers.  Mirabeau  re- 
plied on  the  spot : 

"  You  forget  that  the  people  to  whom  you  oppose  the  lim- 
itation of  the  three  powers,  is  the  source  of  all  the  powers, 
and  that  it  alone  can  delegate  them !  You  forget  that  it  is 
to  the  sovereign  you  would  deny  the  control  of  his  own  ad- 
ministrators !  You  forget,  in  short,  that  we,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  sovereign, — in  presence  of  whom  stand  suspended 
all  the  powers  of  the  State,  those  even  of  the  chief  of  the 
nation  in  case  ofconfliction, — you  forget  that  we  by  no  means 
pretend  to  place  or  displace  ministers  by  virtue  of  our  de- 
crees, but  solely  to  manifest  the  opinion  of  our  constituents 
respecting  such  or  such  a  minister !  What !  you  would  re- 
fuse us  the  simple  right  of  declaration — you  who  accord  us 
that  of  accusing,  of  prosecuting,  and  of  creating  a  tribunal  to 
punish  these  fabrications  of  iniquity,  the  machinations  of 
which,  by  a  palpable  contradiction,  you  would  have  us  to  con- 
template in  a  respectful  silence !  Do  you  not  see  then  how 
much  a  better  lot  I  would  ensure  our  governors  than  you, 
how  much  I  exceed  you  in  moderation  ?  You  allow  no  in- 
terval between  a  boding  silence  and  a  sanguinary  denunci- 
ation. To  say  nothing  or  to  punish,  to  obey  or  to  strike — 
such  is  your  system !  And  for  me,  I  would  notify  before 
denouncing,  I  would  remonstrate  before  casting  reproach !" 

He  frequently  used,  by  inspiration,  those  vivid  figures 
which  transport  of  a  sudden,  men,  objects,  and  places  on  the 
stage,  and  make  them  hear,  speak,  and  act,  as  if  they  were 
really  present.  The  Assembly  was  about  to  plunge  im- 
prudently into  religious  quarrels.  Mirabeau,  to  cut  the  mat- 
ter short,  rose  and  said  :  "  Recollect  that  from  this  place,  from 
the  very  tribune  where  I  now  speak,  I  can  see  the  window 


MIRABEAU.  21 

of  the  palace  through  which  factious  miscreants,  uniting 
temporal  interests  with  the  most  sacred  interests  of  religion, 
had  fired  by  the  hand  of  a  king  of  the  French  the  fatal  gun 
which  was  to  be  the  signal  of  the  massacre  of  the  Huguenots !" 

A  deputation  of  the  Assembly  was  preparing  to  wait 
upon  the  King  to  request  the  dismission  of  the  troops,  al- 
ready three  times  refused.  The  indignant  Mirabeau,  un- 
able to  contain  himself,  addresses  the  Committee  : — 

"  Say  to  the  King — say  to  him,  that  the  hordes  of  foreign- 
ers by  ^vhom  we  are  invested,  have  received  yesterday  the 
visit  of  the  princes,  of  the  princesses,  of  the  favorites,  male 
and  female,  also  their  caresses,  and  their  exhortations,  and 
their  presents  !  Say  to  him  that  the  whole  night,  these  for- 
eign satellites,  gorged  with  gold  and  wine,  have  been  pre- 
dicting in  their  impious  songs  the  enslavement  of  France, 
and  invoking  with  their  brutal  vows  the  destruction  of  the 
National  Assembly  !  Say  to  him  that  in  his  very  palace, 
the  courtiers  have  led  their  dances  to  the  sound  of  this  bar- 
barous music,  and  that  such  was  the  prelude  of  the  Saint- 
Bartholomew  !" 

In  his  fine  discourse  on  the  "  right  of  peace  and  war," 
Mirabeau  had  arrived  after  some  confusion  of  ideas,  at  a 
ptecise  solution  of  the  difficulty,  by  means  of  ministerial 
responsibility,  and  the  refusal  of  the  supplies  on  the  part  of 
the  legislative  power.  But  as  soon  as  he  had  uttered  these 
closing  words  :  "  Fear  not  that  a  rebel  King,  abdicating  of 
himself  his  sceptre,  will  expose  himself  to  the  peril  of  run- 
ning from  victory  to  the  scaffold,"  he  was  interrupted  with 
violent  murmurs.  D'Espremenil  moved  that  he  be  called 
to  order,  for  having  attacked  the  inviolability  of  the  King  ! 
"  You  have  all,"  replied  Mirabeau  at  the  instant,  "  heard 
my  supposition  of  a  despotic  and  revolted  King,  who 
should  come,  with  an  army  of  Frenchmen,  to  conquer  the 
position  of  tyrants.  But  a  King  in  this  position,  is  no  longer 
a  King." — General  applause  : — Mirabeau  proceeds  :  "  It  is 
the  tocsin  of  necessity  alone  which  can  give  the  signal, 
when  the  moment  is  come  for  fulfilling  the  imprescriptable 


22  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

duty  of  resistance — a  duty  always  imperative  whenever  the 
Constitution  is  violated,  always  triumphant  when  the  resist- 
ance is  just  and  truly  national." 

Are  not  these  words  the  prophetic  and  living  picture  of 
the  Revolution  of  July. 

In  the  same  effusion  and  a  little  after,  Mirabeau,  in  a 
celebrated  adjuration,  introduces  on  the  stage  the  Abbe 
Sieyes. — "  I  will  not  conceal,"  said  he,  "  my  deep  regret 
that  the  man  who  has  laid  the  foundations  of  the  Constitution, 
that  the  man  who  has  revealed  to  the  world  the  true  princi- 
pies  of  representative  government,  who  condemns  himself 
to  a  silence  which  I  deplore,  which  I  think  culpable,  that 
the  Abbe  Sieyes — I  ask  his  pardon  for  naming  him — 
does  not  come  forward  to  insert,  himself,  fn  his  constitution, 
one  of  the  most  important  springs  of  the  social  order.  This 
occasions  me  the  more  pain,  .that  crushed  beneath  a  weight 
of  labor  beyond  my  intellex^tual  forces,  unceasingly  hurried 
off  from  self-collection  and  meditation,  which  are  the  prin- 
cipal sources  of  mental  power,  I  had  not  myself  turned  at- 
tention to  this  question  of  the  completion  of  my  work,  ac- 
customed as  I  was  to  repose  upon  that  great  thinker.  I 
have  pressed  him,  conjured,  implored  in  the  name  of  the  • 
friendship  with  which  he  honors  me,  in  the  name  of  Pafri- 
otism — that  sentiment  far  more  energetic  and  holy — to  en- 
dow us  with  the  treasure  of  his  ideas,  not  to  leave  a  blank 
in  the  Constitution.  He  has  refused  me,  I  denounce  him  to 
you  !  I  conjure  you,  in  my  turn,  to  obtain  his  opinion  which 
ought  not  to  be  a  secret,  to  rescue  in  fine  from  discourage-*^ 
ment  a  man  whose  silence  and  seclusion  I  regard  as  a  pub- 
lic calamity." 

I  have  remarked  that  what  has  raised  Mirabeau  incom- 
parably beyond  other  orators,  is  the  profundity  and  breadth 
of  his  thoughts,  the  solidity  of  his  reasoning,  the  vehemence 
of  his  improvisations ;  but  it  is  especially  the  unexampled 
felicity  of  his  repartees.  In  fact,  the  auditors  and  princi- 
pally the  rival  orators  hold  themselves  on  their  guard  against 
premeditated  speeches.     As  they  know  that  the  orator  has 


MIRABEAU.  23 

spread  in  advance  his  toils  to  surprise  them,  they  prepare  ac- 
cordingly in  advance  to  elude  him.  They  search  for,  they  di- 
vine, they  discover,  they  dispose  for  themselves,  with  more  or 
less  of  ability,  the  arguments  which  he  must  employ,  his 
facts,  his  proofs,  his  insinuations,  and  sometimes  even  his  fig- 
ures and  happiest  movements.  They  have  thus,  all  ready  to 
meet  him,  their  objections.  They  shut  the  air-and-eye  holes 
of  their  helmet,  they  cover  the  weak  points  of  their  cui- 
rass where  his  lance  might  penetrate  ;  and  when  the  orator 
crosses  the  barrier,  and  rushes  impetuous  to  the  conflict,  he 
encounters  before  him  an  enemy  armed  cap-a-pie,  who  bars 
his  way  and  disputes  valiantly  the  victory. — But  a  happy 
oratorical  retort  astonishes  and  delights  even  your  adversa- 
ries;  it  produces  •the  effect  of  things  unexpected.  It  is  a 
startling  counterplot,  which  cuts  the  gordian  knots  of  the 
play  and  precipitates  the  catastrophe.  It  is  the  lightning 
flash  amid  the  darkness  of  night.  It  is  the  arm  which 
strikes  in  the  buckler  of  the  enemy,  who  draws  it  instantly 
and  returns  it  to  pierce  the  bosom  of  him  who  had  launched 
it. — The  repartee  shakes  the  irresolute  and  floating  masses 
of  an  assembly.  It  comes  upon  you,  as  the  eagle,  concealed 
in  the  hollow  of  a  rock,  makes  a  stoop  at  its  prey  and  car- 
ries it  off"  all  palpitating  in  its  talons,  before  it  even  has  emitted 
a  cry.  It  arouses,  by  the  stimulant  of  its  novelty,  the  thick- 
skulled,  phlegmatic,  and  drowsy  deputies  who  were  falling 
asleep.  It  sends  a  sudden  and  softening  thrill  to  the  soul. 
It  fires  the  audience  to  cry.  To  arms  !  to  arms  !  It  wrings 
from  the  bosom  exclamations  of  wrath.  It  provokes  laugh- 
ter inextinguishable.  It  compels  the  adversary — officer  or 
soldier — to  go  hide  his  shame  in  the  ranks  of  his  company, 
who  open  them  to  receive  him  but  with  pity  and  derision. 
It  resolves  with  a  word  the  question  in  a  debate.  It  signifies 
an  event.  It  reveals  a  character.  It  paints  a  situation.  It 
absolves,  it  condemns,  a  party.  It  makes  a  reputation,  or  it 
unmakes  it.  It  glorifies,  it  stigmatizes,  it  dejects,  it  cheers, 
it  unbinds,  it  reattaches,  it  saves,  it  slays.  It  attracts,  it 
suspends  magically,  as  by  a  golden  chain,  an  entire  assem- 


24  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

bly  from  the  lips  of  a  single  man.  It  concentrates  at  the 
same  time  its  whole  attention  upon  a  single  point,  for  a  mo- 
ment produces  unanimity,  and  may  decide  of  a  sudden  the 
loss  or  the  gain  of  a  parliamentary  battle. 

Never  did  Mirabeau  shrink  from  an  objection  or  an  ad- 
versary. He  drew  himself  up  to  his  full  height  under  the 
menace  of  his  enemies,  and  burst  by  sledge-blows  the  nail 
which  it  was  intended  he  should  draw. — In  the  tribune  he 
braved  the  prejudices,  the  dumb  objurgations  and  muttering 
impatience  of  the  Assembly.  Immovable  as  a  rock,  he 
crossed  his  arms  and  awaited  silence. — He  retorted  instantly, 
blow  after  blow,  upon  all  opponents  and  on  all  subjects,  with 
a  rapidity  of  action  and  a  nicety  of  pertinence  really  sur- 
prising. He  painted  men  and  things  with  a  manner  and  • 
words  entirely  his  own. — How  energetically  did  he  describe 
France,  "  an  unconstituted  aggregation  of  disunited  people." 
— He  used  to  say  in  his  monarchical  language  :  "  The  mcui- 
arch  is  the  perpetual  representative  of  the  people,  and  the 
deputies  are  the  temporary  representatives." — Member  of 
the  directory  of  Paris,  he  expressed  himself  thus  before  the 
King :  "  A  tall  tree  covers  with  its  shade  a  large  surface. 
Its  roots  shoot  wide  and  deep  through  the  soil  and  entwine 
themselves  around  eternal  rocks.  To  pull  it  down  the  earth 
itself  must  be  uptorn.  Such,  Sire,  is  the  image  of  constitu- 
tional monarchy." — Assailed  impertinently  by  M.  de  Fau- 
cigny,  he  words  the  reprimand  in  these  terms :  "  The  As- 
sembly, satisfied  with  the  repentance  you  testify,  remits  you, 
sir,  the  penalty  which  you  have  incurred." 

What  vivacity,  what  actuality,  what  nobleness  in  all  these 
repartees !  what  keen  and  chivalrous  irony  !  what  vigor ! 

The  pretensions  of  the  republic  of  Genoa  to  the  island  of 
Corsica  were  occupying  the  deliberation  of  the  house  at  un- 
necessary length. 

Mirabeau  : — ''  I  do  not  think  that  a  league  between  Ra- 
gusa,  Lucca,  Saint-Maro,  and  some  other  powers  equally 
formidable,  ought  to  give  you  great  inquietude  ;  nor  do  I  re- 
gard as  very  dangerous  the  republic  of  Genoa,  whose  armies 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  TT  .  25 

have  been  put  to  flight  by  twelve  men  and  twelve  women  on 
the  sea-coast  in  Corsica.  I  move  an  extremely  indefinite  ad- 
journment." 

Cazales  proposed,  as  a  remedy  for  the  public  evils,  the 
investment  of  the  King  during  three  months  with  unlimited 
executive  power. — Mirabeau  said  :  "  M.  de  Cazales  is  be- 
side the  question,  for  he  discusses  whether  or  not  the  King 
is  to  be  accorded  a  dictatorship." — And  as  the  Abbe  Maury 
insisted  upon  the  right  of  Cazales  to  make  this  motion,  Mi- 
rabeau replied  :  "  I  have  pretended  not  that  the  preceding 
speaker  had  transgressed  his  right;  I  have  said  only  that  he 
was  beside  the  question.  He  has  demanded  the  dictatorship  ; 
the  dictatorship  over  a  nation  of  twenty^fivc  millions  of  souls  ! 
The  dictatorship  to  one  man  !  in  a  country  actually  occupied 
in  forming  its  Constitution,  in  a  country  whose  representatives 
are  assembled  in  council,  the  dictatorship  to  a  single  indi- 
vidual !" 

To  the  optimists  who  slumbered  in  presence  of  the  men- 
acing state  of  affairs  : — "  We  sleep  ;  but  do  not  people  sleep 
at  the  foot  of  Vesuvius  ?"  ' 

To  the  Abbe  Maury,  who  taunted  him  with  invoking  tiie 
aid  of  the  populace  : — "  I  will  not  stoop  to  repel  the  charge 
just  made  upon  me,  unless  the  Assembly  dignify  it  to  my 
level,  by  ordering  me  to  reply.  In  that  case,  I  would  deem 
it  sufficient  for  my  vindication  and  my  glory  to  name  my  ac- 
cuser and  to  name  myself .^^ 

To  a  verbal  dispute  respecting  the  wording  of  a  clause  in 
the  Constitution  : — '•'  I  will  observe  that  it  would  not  be  amiss 
that  the  National  Assembly  of  France  should  speak  French, 
and  even  indite  in  French  the  laws  which  it  proposes." 

To  those  who  claimed  the  inalienability  of  the  ancient 
foundations  of  the  Clergy  : — "  If  all  the  men  who  have  lived 
upon  the  earth  had  each  had  a  separate  tomb,  it  would  liave 
been  indispensable,  in  order  to  find  lands  for  cultivation,  to 
pull  down  these  monuments,  and  to  plough  the  ashes  of  the 
dead  for  the  sustenance  of  the  living." 

To  a  deputy  who  moved  the  adjournment  of  a   motion 


o 
O 


26  CONSTITUENT      A  S  S  E  MB  L  Y  . 

relative  to  some  unfortunates  under  capital  sentence  : — 
"  Were  you  going  to  be  hung,  sir,  would  you  propose  the 
adjournment  of  an  investigation  which  might  result  in  saving 
vour  life  ?" 

To  those  who  pretended  that  the  demand  upon  the  king  to 
dismiss  the  ministry  must  prove  the  ruin  of  England  : — 
♦'  England  is  lost !  Ah  !  great  God  !  what  unfortunate 
nev/s !  But  in  what  latitude  has  she  been  lost,  or  what 
earthquake,  M'hat  convulsion  of  nature  has  engulfed  that 
famous  island,  that  inexhaustible  abode  of  great  examples, 
that  classic  land  of  the  friends  of  freedom  ?  .  .  .  .  But  you  give 
us  heart,  you  give  us  hope  ....  England  is  repairing,  in  a 
glorious  silence,  the  Avounds  she  inflicted  upon  herself  in  the 
delirium  of  a  burninor  fever.  England  flourishes  still  for 
the  eternal  instruction  of  the  world  !" 

To  another  who  grew  indignant  at  the  proposition  of  a 
single  Chamber  : — "  I  have  always  dreaded  to  provoke  rea- 
son, but  never  individuals." 

To  the  address  of  the  town  of  Rennes,  declaring  as  trai- 
tors and  enemies  of  tlie  country,  the  supporters  of  the 
Royal  Veto : — "  If  the  Assembly  bestow  much  time  upon 
such  a  subject,  it  will  have  the  air  of  a  giant  who  stands 
on  tip-toe  in  order  to  appear  tall.  Melun,  Chaillot,  Vira- 
flav,  have  the  right  of  utterinsf  the  same  absurdities  as 
Rennes  :  like  Rennes  they  qualify  as  scoundrels  and  traitors 
to  the  country,  those  who  do  not  share  their  opinions.  The 
national  Assembly  has  not  time  to  i'nstitute  itself  professor 
to  the  municipalities  that  may  advance  false  maxims." 

To  the  Committee  upon  the  constitution  who  opposed  a 
motion  of  amendment : — "  The  Committees  are  beyond  all 
'doubt  the  elect  of  the  universe.  But  the  national  Assembly 
has  not  yet  said  that  it  meant  to  decree  them  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  investigating  -and  debating  the  subjects  of  its 
deliberations." 

To  a  member  who  would  preserve  in  the  royal  proclama- 
tions these  words  :  To  all  present  and  future,  greeting  ! 
Mirabeau  remarked  :    "  If  the  mode  of  salutation  should 


MIRABEAU.  27 

pass  away !"  And  to  another  who  wished  the  expressions : 
King  of  France  and  Navarre  :  "  Would  it  not  be  proper  to 
add  :  And  other  places  /" 

To  a  member  who  maintained  that  the  deputies  ought  to 
enjoy  the  privilege  of  inviolability  accorded  to  ambassadors, 
since  they  too  were  representatives  of  nations  : — "  I  will 
reply  that  I  was  not  aware  there  had  been  in  this  Assembly 
ambassadors  from  Dourdan,  ambassadors  from  the  land  of 
Gex.  I  prefer  to  think  that  we  are  here  but  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  French  nation,  and  not  of  the  nations  of 
France  J ^ 

To  those  who  disapproved  the  title  of  French  people  : — "  I 
adopt  it,  I  defend  it,  I  proclaim  it,  for  the  very  reason  which 
makes  it  obnoxious.  Yes,  it  is  because  the  name  of  people 
is  not  sufficiently  respected  in  France — because  it  is  ob- 
scured, covered  with  the  rust  of  prejudice — because  it  pre- 
sents us  an  idea  at  which  pride  takes  alarm  and  vanity 
revolts — because  it  is  mentioned  with  contempt  in  the  draw- 
ing-rooms  of  the  aristocrats — It  is  for  this  very  reason,  gentle- 
men, that  I  would  wish, — it  is  for  this  very  reason  that  wo 
ought  to  make  it  a  duty,  not  only  to  elevate  it,  but  to  ennoblo 
it  and  render  it  henceforth  respectable  to  ministers  and  deai 
to  every  heart." 

To  a  pamphlet  against  him,  distributed  on  the  benches, 
and  of  which  he  read  only  the  title  as  he  mounted  the 
tribune : — "  I  know  enough  of  it,  and  I  will  be  borne  from 
this  place  triumphant  or  a  corpse." 

To  a  libel  of  Marat,  wherein  he  was  called  a  desio-nino; 
knave  and  a  scoundrel  fit  for  the  gallows  : — "  This  pamphlet 
of  a  drunken  man  speaks  of  designing  knaves.  Well,  it  is 
not  the  Chatelet  of  Paris,  but  the  mad-house  of  Senegal,  that 
befits  this  extravagance.  I  alone  am  named  in  it.  Pass 
to  the  order  of  the  day."  ^ 

To  an  informer  reading  a  letter  found  upon  a  pretended 
agent  of  Mirabeau,  and  where  it  was  said  :  Riquetti  the  elder 
is  a  scoundrel : — "  Mr.  Informer,  do  you  not  flatter  me  ? 
you  have  had  the  goodness  to  furnish  me  a  copy,  and  I 


28  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

think  I  read  :  Riquetti  the  elder  is  an  infamous  scoundrel. 
It  is  well  to  exhibit  in  its  true  colors  the  faithful  portrait 
which  my  agent  has  drawn  of  me.     Read  all." 

And  on  another  occasion  : — "  I  have  seen  fifty-four 
letires -de-cachet  in  my  family.  Yes,  gentlemen,  fifty- four, 
and  I  have  had  seventeen  for  my  part.  So,  you  see,  I  have 
had  my  share  as  elder  brother  of  Normandy." 

To  those  who  interrupted  his  exclamations  against  a  law 
of  vengeance  : — "  The  popularity  which  I  have  aspired  to 
and  which  I  have  enjoyed,  is  not  a  feeble  reed.  It  is  deep  in 
the  earth  that  I  mean  to  infix  its  roots,  upon  the  enduring 
basis  of  reason  and  liberty.  If  you  make  this  law,  I  swear 
never  to  obey  it." 

To  those  who  denied  the  Assembly  the  legitimate  powers  of 
a  national  Convention  : — "  Our  national  Convention  is  above 
all.  imitation,  as  above  all  authority  ;  it  is  accountable  but 
to  itself,  and  can  be  judged  but  by  posterity.  Gentlemen, 
you  all  remember  the  remark  of  that  Roman,  who,  to  save 
his  country  from  a  dreadful  conspiracy,  had  overstepped  the 
powers  conferred  on  him  by  the  laws : — Swear,  said  a  cap- 
tious demagogue  of  that  day,  that  you  have  observed  the 
laws. — I  swear,  replied  this  great  man,  that  I  have  saved 
the  republic  ! — Gentlemen,  I  swear  that  you  have  saved 
the  commonwealth." 

Both  the  opposite  parties  accused  him  at  the  same  time  of 
conspiracy  : — "  One  moment  a  factious  conspirator,"  replied 
he,  "  the  next  a  counter-revolutionaiy  conspirator !  permit 
me,  gentlemen,  to  ask  a  division." 

Mirabeau  was  obstinate  in  defending  the  royal  veto ;  in- 
stantly the  wind  of  his  popularity  changed.  He  is  de- 
nounced in  an  infamous  libel,  which  accused  him  of  high 
treason  : — "  And  me,  too,"  he  exclaimed,  in  an  oratorical 
movement  which  electrified  the  Assembly,  "  and  me,  too, 
they  would,  some  days  since,  have  borne  in  triumph,  and 
now  they  cry  through  the  streets  : — The  great  consjnracy  of 
Count  Mirabeau.  I  needed  not  this  lesson  to  know  that  there 
is  but  a  step  from  the  Capitol  to  the  Tarpeian  rock." 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  29 

In  fine,  whrft  is  there  in  the  history  of  ancient  eloquence 
more  spirited,  more  haughty,  more  heroic,  more  insolent,  more 
unexpected,  more  victorious,  more  stunning,  more  over- 
whelming,  more  crushing,  than  the  repartee  of  Mirabeau  to 
the  Grand  master  of  ceremonies  of  the  Court  ? — '•  The  Com- 
mons  of  France  liave  resolved  to  deliberate  :  and  you,  sir,  who 
could  not  be  the  organ  of  the  king  to  the  national  Assembly  ; 
you,  w'ho  have  here  neither  seat,  nor  vote,  nor  right  of  speak- 
ino-,  CO  tell  vour  master  that  we  are  here  by  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  that  we  will  not  be  torn  from  it  save  by  the  force 
of  bayonets." 

M.  de  Baize,  as  if  thunderstruck,  walked  backwards  in 
leaving  the  hall.  It  was  the  Monarchy  retreating  before  the 
Revolution. 

I  will  not  descend  into  the  private  life  of  Mirabeau,  which 
has  been  to  him  rather  an  obstacle  than  an  aid,  a  blemish 
than  a  foil.  I  am  not  a  retailer  of  anecdotes,  nor  a  biog- 
rapher of  scandals.  I  am  a  painter,  and  have  to  represent, 
in  each  of  my  personages,  but  the  politician,  and  especially 
the  orator. 

For  the  rest,  public  opinion  treats  with  less  severity  the 
men  of  the  Opposition,  such  as  Mirabeau,  Sheridan,  and 
others  of  cur  day,  for  they  were  but  orators.  It  is  more 
severe  towards  the  men  in  authority,  and  justly  so,  for  they 
owe  example,  they  govern.  What  has  been  said  of  Marazin  ? 
He  is  a  profligate.  What  used  to  be  said  of  Turgot  ?  He 
is  a  conscientious  minister.  And  of  Robespierre  ?  He  is 
incorruptible.  And  of  Louis  XVI.  1  He  is  an  honest  man. 
The  people  must  esteem  those  who  govern  them.  The  sen- 
timent does  honor  to  the  morality  of  the  human  species. 

Mirabeau  has  often  reorretted  the  debaucheries  of  imaijina- 
tion  and  of  temperament  which  deflowered  his  youth.  He 
has  nobly  repaired  them  in  avowing  them,  even  in  the 
tribune.     He  bore  his  heart  as  hiorh  as  his  head. 

Add  that  his  discourses,  motions,  addresses,  amendments, 
breathe,  in  his  public  capacity,  the  purest  morality. — He 

3* 


30  CONSTITUENT      ASSEMBLY. 

used  to  say  :   "  It  is  more  important  to  give  Wen  morals  and 
habits  than  laws  and  tribunals." 

Singular  circumstance  !  it  was  he  who,  through  a  reli- 
gious sentiment,  caused  to  be  retained  the  title  :  Louis,  hy 
the  grace  of  God,  King  of  the  French. 

Just  escaped  from  the  dungeons  of  Vincennes,  he  loved 
liberty  fanatically,  idolatrously.  For  the  rights  and  the 
wants  of  the  people  he  had  a  profound,  elevated,  and  delicate 
respect.  He  was  of  opinion  that  there  ought  to  be  estab- 
lished in  society  such  an  order  of  things  that,  every  where, 
the  aged  would  have  a  place  of  refuge,  and  the  poor,  em- 
ployment and  food. 

More  vicious  in  temperament  than  in  heart — extreme  in 
his  passions,  haughty  in  his  repentance — impatient  of  all 
restraint — careless  about  the  morrow,  like  all  men  of  letters 
— forgetful  of  injuries,  like  all  great  souls — poor,  harassed  by 
low  wants,  pining  for  glory,  proud  of  his  birth,  and  playing 
at  the  same  time  the  noble  and  the  tribune — insinuatino-  to 
the  fascination  of  even  his  enemies  ;  his  soul  was  an  inex- 
haustible furnace  of  sensibility,  whence  issued  those  sudden 
illuminations  of  his  eloquence.  Impetuous,  daring,  natural, 
cheerful,  humane,  generous  to  excess  ;  expansive,  open- . 
hearted,  even  to  familiarity,  and  familiar  to  indiscretion  ; — 
prompt  and  powerful  in  intellect,  sparkling  with  imagination 
•and  wit,  with  an  immenseness  of  memory,  taste,  talent,  and 
knowledge,  and  a  prodigious  facility  of  composition, — such 
was  Mirabeau. 

Mirabeau  had  long  meditated  upon  the  art  of  military 
strategy.  Brave  himself  and  born  of  heroic  blood,  his  iron 
constitution,  his  comprehensive  glance,  his  vast  faculties,  his 
presence  of  mind  and  unshaken  firmness  amid  danger,  would 
have  raised  him  at  once  to  the  first  honors  of  war.  He 
would  have  been  as  good  a  general  as  he  was  an  orator. 

A  man  almost  complete  and  the  only  one  of  his  sort,  Mira- 
beau was  the  greatest  orator  and  the  greatest  politician  of 
his  time.  He  would  have  made  its  greatest  minister  also; 
for  he  had  the  genius  of  business,  the  unity  and  certitude 


MIRABEAU.  31 

which  result  from  system,  patience  for  details,  knowledge 
of  men,  foresight  into  the  future,  fertility  of  expedients,  af- 
fability of  manners,  energy  of  will,  the  instinct  of  com- 
mand, the  confidence  of  the  country,  and  a  universal  re- 
nown. 

Mirabeau  and  Napoleon  have  both — each  in  reference  to 
the  time  wherein  he  appeared  and  the  special  nature  of  his 
labors — contributed  the  most  to  organize  modern  France ; 
for  the  one  constituted  the  Revolution,  the  other  the  Em- 
pire. Mirabeau  in  fine  was  the  man  of  those  times  to  whom 
it  would  have  been  given,  had  he  lived,  the  most  to  destroy 
and  the  most  to  re-edify  ;  equally  fit  for  both  these  courses, 
by  the  power  of  his  genius  and  the  perseverance  of  his  will. 
Not  that  he  wished  to  re-erect  what  he  had  demolished.  He 
knew  well  that  new  edifices  are  not  to  be  rebuilt  with  the 
ruins  of  the  old.  "  A  gangrened  body,"  he  used  to  say, 
"is  not  to  be  healed  by  applying  sore  to  sore,  ulcer  to  ulcer. 
There  must  be  a  transfusion  of  new  blood."  But  with  this 
new  blood,  it  is  not  the  renovation  of  the  old  man,  it  is  the 
creation  of  a  nev/  man,  it  is  another. 

Despite  of  this,  he  indulged  the  dream  of  the  alliance 
^  since  so  much  and  so  vainly  sought,  of  liberty  with  mon- 
archy. He  desired  this  monarchy  with  all  its  conditions  of 
strength  and  durability,  and  by  a  strange  inconsequence,  his 
maxims  were  republican  and  his  measures  revolutionary. — 
Whether  it  was  that  he  did  not  perceive  this  contradiction, 
or  that  he  flattered  himself  with  being  able  to  surmount  it, 
he  designed  and  attempted  the  amalgamation,  the  fusion,  the 
chimera,  both  in  Parliament  and  out  of  it.  He  urged,  in  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  after  his  picturesque  manner : — "  We 
are  not  savages  come  stark  naked  from  the  banks  of  the 
Oronoko,  to  form  a  society.  We  are  an  old  nation — too  old. 
We  have  a  pre-existing  government,  a  pre-existing  king,  pre- 
existing prejudices.  We  must  therefore,  as  far  as  possible, 
assort  all  these  things  to  the  Revolution,  and  parry  the  ab- 
ruptness of  the  transition." 

He  tried  to  repair,  by  means  of  his  veto,  the  foundering 


32  C  U  N  S  T  I  T  U  E  N  T      ASSEMBLY. 

vessel  of  royalty.  He  did  not  see  that  with  the  reality  of 
the  veto  power,  under  a  hereditary  king,  the  sovereignty  of 
the  people  is  but  a  name  and  a  shadow,  and  that  with  the 
fiction  of  the  veto  under  a  popular  constitution,  the  sove- 
reignty of  the  monarcli  is  in  like  manner  but  a  name  and 
a  dream.  The  reason  is,  that,  necessarily,  the  sovereignty 
must  reside  somewhere,  and  being,  in  its  nature,  one  and 
indivisible,  it  cannot  repose  at  the  same  time  upon  two  dif- 
ferent heads.  We  must  then  choose.  For  the  co-existence 
of  two  wills  equal  and  independent  is  not  a  state  of  har- 
mony but  of  hostility  ;  and  hostility  is  conflict,  and  conflict  is 
the  death  of  one  of  the  combatants. 

The  absolute  veto  of  the  prince  implies  that  the  prince 
governs.  For  it  is  to  govern  to  the  fullest  extent,  to  do  what 
one  wishes  and  not  to  do  what  he  does  not  wish.  The  sus- 
pensive veto  of  the  prince  implies  that  the  prince  reigns,  but 
docs  not  govern.  For  it  is  not  to  govern  when  one  is,  ulti- 
mately, obliged  to  do  that  which  he  does  not  wish.  The 
veto  of  the  prince  is,  in  a  parliamentary  monarchy,  but  the 
veto  of  the  ministry.  But,  responsible  ministers  are  the 
servants  of  the  parliament ;  from  it  they  are  taken,  to  it  they 
return,  by  it  they  execute,  for  it  they  govern.  How  should 
not  they  and  their  successors  come  at  last  to  yield  to  it  ? 

This  whole  thesis  is  reduced  at  the  present  day  to  a  few 
points,  very  precise,  and  which  are  these  :  The  refusal  to  tax 
effectually  places  all  the  power  in  the  hands  of  the  refuser. 
The  suspensive  veto  is,  if  you  will,  equivalent  to  a  second 
Chamber,  and  nothing  more.  The  dissolution  of  the  Legisla- 
tive body  is  the  appeal  of  the  ministry  to  the  people.  The 
counter-force  of  a  persisting  veto  is  a  revolution.  This  is, 
in  our  day,  the  position  of  things. 

Mirabeau  had  some  presentiments  of  this  species  of  mon- 
archy, whether  by  political  prescience  or  an  inspiration  of 
his  ambition.  Without  doubt,  the  enviers  of  his  fame  de- 
sired to  preclude  him  from  the  ministry.  But  independ- 
ently of  this  particular  cause,  the  Constituent  Assembly,  by 
the  necessity,  by  the  law  of  its  position,  by  the  instinctive 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  33 

destiny  of  its  object,  by  the  irresistible  logic  of  its  princi- 
ples, by  the  blind  opposition  of  the  courtiers,  must  desire 
for  itself  and  for  it  alone,  permanence,  unity  and  omnipo- 
tence. The  providential  reason  of  a  revolution  is  not  the 
same  as  the  reason  of  a  normal  state  of  society. 

Mirabeau,  defeated  on  the  Veto  question  by  the  Assembly's 
distrust  of  the  royal  authority,  returned  to  the  charge  on  the 
question  of  the  admission  of  Ministers  to  a  seat ;  but  in  spite 
of  the  unheard-of  efforts  of  intellect,  eloquence,  and  logic, 
he  succumbed  beneath  the  violence  of  the  same  prejudice. 
He  then  determined  to  seek,  outside  of  the  Parliament,  for 
support  and  forces  against  it.  But  why — and  here  returns 
that  embarrassing  question — why  did  Mirabeau  stop  all  of  a 
sudden  on  the  declivity  of  the  revolution  ?  Was  he  affrighted 
himself  by  the  noise  and  violence  of  its  course  1  Did  he 
mean  only  to  save  liberty  from  its  own  aberrations,  by  pass- 
ing into  its  mouth  a  curb  and  bridle  ?  His  prejudices  of 
education,  of  family,  of  birth,  did  they  resiez-;  him  uncon- 
sciously ?  Was  he  bought  over  by  the  Court  ?  Did  he  de- 
sire a  limited  monarchy,  purged  of  federalism  and  favoritism, 
a  king  and  two  Chambers,  a  constitutional  trinity  ?  Or 
rather,  weary,  cloyed  with  the  emotions  of  the  orator,  this 
man  of  boundless  passions,  did  he  wish  to  taste  the  different 
emotions  offered  by  the  ministerial  office  ?  Had  he  the  am- 
bition, under  the  guise  of  a  powerless  and  merely  nominal 
royalty,  to  govern  the  Assembly  and  France  ?  Posterity 
alone  will  furnish — or,  perhaps,  will  not  be  able  to  furnish — 
the  solution  of  this  problem,  to  us  insoluble. 

What  is  less  doubtful  is,  that  Mirabeau  meant  to  push  his 
colleagues  to  excesses,  perhaps  to  crimes,  in  order  to  punish 
them  afterwards  for  having  committed  them.  A  mode  of 
perdition  quite  satanic  and  worthy  of  Machiavel ;  a  political 
immorality  which  honest  men  cannot  brand  with  too  much 
indignation,  and  which  leaves  a  dark,  a  very  dark  stain 
upon  the  glory  of  this  great  man. 

Mirabeau,  with  his  back  like  another  Hercules  opposed 
to  the  breaches  of  the  revolutionary  torrent,  strove  to  check 


84  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

the  consequences  which,  at  all  points,  broke  out  innpetu. 
ously  from  their  principle.  He  had  in  his  star  the  faith 
somewhat  superstitious  of  great  men.  He  imagined  that 
the  flying  arrow  may  stop  short  in  the  air  before  reaching 
its  object.  He  wished  himself  to  serve  alone  intrepidly  for 
object  to  the  continual  firing  of  his  enemies.  He  was  already 
preparing,  with  a  paroxysm  of  enei'gy,  to  renew  the  giant 
struggle,  when  all  of  a  sudden,  his  strength  gave  way,  and 
he  sunk  like  the  monarchy  of  which  he  v/ore  the  mourning.* 
At  this  astounding  intelligence,  Paris  is  agitated,  the  peo- 
ple run  to  his  residence,  and  gather  around,  with  lamenta- 
tions and  tears,  the  couch  of  Mirabeau  dying,  of  Mirabeau 
dead.  They  contemplate  with  pensive  eye  the  corpse  of 
their  tribune.  They  touch  it,  they  seek  still  there  some 
remnant  of  vital  heat ;  they  ask,  in  the  wildness  of  their 
despair,  that  their  veins  be  opened,  and  that,  to  revive  his 
vitality,  he  be  given  a  part  of  theirs  ;  they  press  and  chafe 
those  icy  hands  which  hurled  so  often  the  popular  thunder- 
bolts.    They  harness  themselves  to  his  hearse  and  draw  his 

*  As  soon  as  it  was  known  that  Mirabeau  was  in  danc^er  of  death, 
the  legislature  adjourned,  the  festivals  ceased,  the  streets  were  filled 
with  people,  Paris  was  one  scene  of  consternation.  Some  of  the 
populace  entreated  to  have  their  veins  opened  to  perform  operations 
of  transfusion  with  their  blood  upon  Mirabeau  ;  others  wrung  their 
hands  with  despair,  such  was  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  the  public 
mind ! 

For  him,  taken  suddenly  as  if  with  an  unknown  malady,  he  viewed 
the  approaching  death  with  great  severity.  "  What  epitaph,"  said 
he,  "  is  to  be  inscribed  upon  my  tomb  ?" 

The  Constituent  Assembly,  followed  by  an  immense  multitude, 
bore  triumphantly  his  body  to  the  Pantheon,  by  the  light  of  a  thou- 
sand torches.  Subsequently,  a  decree  of  1793  ordained  that  the 
statue  of  Mirabeau  be  veiled  until  his  memory  should  be  reestab- 
lished. There,  one  night,  two  Police  waiters  threw  the  body  into  a 
sack  and  proceeded  to  bury  it  in  the  cemetery  of  Clamart,  which  is 
at  present  the  burial  ground  only  for  persons  who  have  been  execu- 
ted, among  whom  the  undistinguishable  remains  of  this  great  orator 
lie  mixed  and  confounded. 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U .  35 

remains  to  the  Pantheon,  with  the  pomp  and  the  apotheosis 
of  a  king.* 

Alas !  no  more  was  to  be  heard  that  voice  of  the  tri- 
bune, of  which  the  reverberation  rolled,  like  successive 
thunder-claps,  from  column  to  column,  along  the  magnifi- 
cent aisles  of  the  Revolution  ;  that  voice  of  the  states- 
man which  proclaimed  the  principles  of  the  French  Consti- 
tution ;  that  voice  of  the  orator  which,  in  early  antiquity, 
would  have  stirred  up  by  its  inconceivable  influence,  the 
nations,  the  cities,  and  the  kingdoms.  O  vicissitudes  of 
popularity  !  Those  statues  which  had  been  erected  in  honor 
of  him,  were,  in  the  name  of  patriotism,  to  be  hung  with 
crape,  as  they  cover  with  a  black  veil  the  face  of  the  parri- 
cide !  And  that  enthusiastic  and  fickle  multitude,  who  would 
have  their  blood  drawn  to  transfuse  it  into  the  exhausted 
veins  of  Mirabeau,  and  who  had  carried  him  between  their 
triumphant  arms  beneath  the  dome  of  the  Pantheon,  were, 
by  and  by,  to  execrate  their  tribune  and  to  stone  his  memory  ! 
And  this  Pantheon,  to  which  his  ever-glorious  ashes  had 

*  In  the  memoirs  of  Samuel  Romilly,  a  Parisian  correspondent, 
writing  to  him,  says : — 

"  Mirabeau's  career  could  not  have  come  to  an  fend  at  a  moment 
more  propitious  for  his  own  fame ;  six  months  earlier  his  death  would 
have  been  considered  as  a  happy  event  for  the  public ;  and  only  two 
months  ago,  it  would  have  been  looked  upon  with  general  indiffer- 
ence. But,  for  some  weeks  past,  he  had  so  entirely  taken  up  the 
right  side,  and  it  was  so  strongly  felt  that  he  could  not  but  accom- 
plish what  he  wished,  that  all  well-disposed  people  had  placed  in  him 
their  hopes  for  the  restoration  of  order  and  peace,  and  looked  upon 
him  as  the  terror  of  the  factions,  and  the  prop  of  the  Constitution." 

Dumont,  also,  who  was  Mirabeau's  intimate  friend,  writes  to  Rom- 
illy :— 

"  So,  Mirabeau  is  extinguished  in  the  midst  of  his  career  !  Is  it  a 
misfortune  for  the  Revolution  ?  I  think  it  is.  His  house  was  a  focus 
of  liberty.  If  he  did  not  work  himself,  he  made  others  work :  he 
stimulated  men  of  talent,  and  was  a  strong  prop  to  the  party  whose 
cause  he  espoused.  He  was  dangerous,  no  doubt,  from  his  passions, 
which  exerted  absolute  dominion  over  him  :  but  oven  these  might  be 
directed  to  good  ends,  and  he  had  a  love  of  glory.  I  ft4t,  from  the 
grief  that  I  experienced  at  his  los9,  th.^t  he  had  acquired  a  stronger 


36  CONSTITUENT     ASSEMBLY. 

been  committed  for  eternity,  under  the  guardianship  of  a 
grateful  nation,  was  to  spue  them  from  its  bosom  as  a  mass 
of  contamination  and  horror  ! — And  he,  he  who,  on  the  edge 
of  his  burning  couch,  raved  about  glory  and  prosperity,  and 
who  asked  all  his  weeping  friends  around  him  for  epitaphs 
for  his  tomb,  how  would  he  not  have  shuddered  had  he 
known  that  his  remains  were  to  be  disentombed  in  the  secrecy 
of  night,  and  carried,  by  the  lurid  torch-light,  to  be  thrown 
into  the  vulgar  ditch  appropriated  to  criminals  ?  Where  are 
now  those  magnificent  epitaphs  which  he  had  promised  him- 
self? Where  is  to  be  found  and  how  to  be  recognized  the 
head  of  that  great  Riquetti  amid  those  heaps  of  gory  trunks 
and  skulls  all  mutilated  by  the  axe  of  the  executioner!  O 
vanity  of  our  aspirations !  O  nothingness  of  human  great- 
ness ! 

hold  on  my  affections  tlian  I  had  been  myself  aware  of.  It  was  impos- 
sible to  know  him,  and  net  be  fascinated  by  his  talents  and  his  en- 
gaging manners.  How  often  have  I  lamented  that  his  powers  should 
have  wanted  the  influence  of  an  unsullied  reputation  !  His  passions 
have  consumed  him  ;  if  he  had  known  how  to  control  them,  he  might 
have  lived  for  a  hundred  years. — Our  aristocrats  tore  him  to  pieces, 
and  they  regret  him  ;  the  death  of  a  man  who  sustained  public  credit 
is  a  real  loss  to  them." 


©  ^  iRa  'ir  ©  Ki  n 


i». 


THE    CONVENTION. 


DAN  TON. 

The  Convention  opened  under  the  gloomy  auspices  of 
death,  having  the  guillotine  at  its  side,  and  the  Revolutionary 
tribunal  in  the  prospect. 

The  members  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  had  been  men 
of  theory;  those  of  the  Convention  were  men  of  action. 

The  Mountain  and  the  Gironde  advanced  against  each 
other  like  hostile  armies  on  a  field  of  battle,  surveying 
each  other's  strength,  and  mutually  exchanging  unmeasured 
defiances,  while  the  Plain,  tossed  to  and  fro  by  conflicting 
winds,  bore,  like  a  drifting  body,  now  tov/ards  one  side,  now 
to  the  other,  and  gave  itself  up  to  the  currents  of  its  fear. 

It  seemed  as  if  a  sword,  suspended  by  some  invisible 
thread,  depended  over  the  head  of  the  president,  of  each 
speaker,  of  each  deputy.  Paleness  sat  upon  every  coun- 
tenance ;  vengeance  boiled  in  every  bosom.  The  imagi- 
nation was  filled  with  corpses  and  funeral  processions ;  a 
death  shudder  ran  through  every  discourse.  The  sole  topics 
of  the  broken,  convulsive,  and  as  if  involuntarily  uttered 
speeches,  were  crimes,  conspiracies,  treasons,  complicities, 
scaffolds. 

Marat  was  seen  to  draw  from  his  bosom  a  pistol,  and  resting 
it  upon  his  forehead  :  "  Another  word,"  he  exclaimed,  "  and 
I  blow  out  my  brains."  Not  one  around  him  fell  back,  or 
took  the  slightest  alarm.  So  much  to  kill  one's  self,  or  to  be 
killed,  appeared  at  that  time  natural ! 

4 


38  T  H  E      C  O  N  V  E  N  T  I  O  N  . 

David,  mounting  his  seat,  vociferated  :  "  I  demand  that 
vou  assassinate  me  !" 

Men  rushed  to  the  tribune,  with  eye  on  fire,  the  fist 
clenched,  the  breast  palpitating,  to  incriminate,  or  to  defend 
themselves.  In  testimony  of  their  innocence  they  staked 
their  head.  They  demanded  that  of  others.  For  all 
crimes,  without  distinction,  no  other  penalty  was  invoked 
than  death.  The  Assembly  wanted  but  the  executioner — 
who  was  not  far  off. 

Victory  seemed  a  moment  to  declare  for  the  Gironde. 
Then  it  is  impossible  to  form  an  idea  of  the  vehemence  of 
insult,  contempt,  gesture,  and  look  which  assailed  Marat. 
His  person  was  shrunk  from  with  horror,  as  if  he  had  no- 
thing of  humanity,  neither  shape,  nor  speech,  nor  even  the 
name. 

As  Robespierre  ascended  the  tribune,  cries  were  raised 
of  "  Down  with  the  Dictator !"  Robespierre  winced,  but 
quickly  retrieved  himself,  and  day  by  day  he  went  on 
gathering  that  leaden  cloud  which  was  soon  to  burst  in  the 
death  of  Louis  XVI. — the  punishment  of  the  Girondists — 
the  insurrection  of  La  Vendee — the  establishment  of  the  re- 
volutionary tribunal — the  permanence  of  the  guillotine — the 
demagoguism  of  the  clubs — the  carnage  of  the  prisons— 
the  denunciations — the  reign  of  terror. 

Vergniaud  guillotined,  Danton  guillotined,  the  Conven- 
tion fell  into  deep  gloom  and  a  sort  of  stupor.  To  the  crisis 
and  the  fever  had  succeeded  the  chill,  tlie  cold  perspirations, 
the  dejection  of  spirits,  the  muscular  debility.  There  was 
some  speaking  still,  but  no  discussion.  Robespierre,  Saint- 
Just,  Couthon,  CoUot-d'Herbois,  Billaud-Varennes,  attended 
to  read  their  reports,  amid  the  horrors  of  silence.  No  one 
dared  breathe,  nor  look  at  another  significantly,  nor  es- 
pecially utter  a  word  in  contradiction.  The  timid  sought 
refuge  in  a  feigned  enthusiasm ;  the  bold  muttered  the 
excuses  of  fear.  The  initiative  in  all  measures  had  passed 
to  the  Jacobin  Club,  the  armed  force  to  the  Commune,  and 
the  supreme  direction  of  tlie  Police  to  Robespierre.     The 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  39 

triumviral  minority  opposed  the  majority  of  the  cabinet  in 
the  Committee  of  Public  Safety.  The  Convention,  now  mu- 
tilated by  the  executions  of  the  Revolutionary  tribunal, 
moved  neither  hands  nor  lips,  as  if  the  current  of  life  had 
been  stopped,  and  the  blood  had  been  of  a  sudden  congealed 
in  its  veins.  It  had  now  but  the  automatical  movements  of 
a  decree-making  machine. 

Robespierre,  ordinarily  so  sagacious,  ruined  himself  by 
his  disdain  of  it.  He  remained  for  forty  days — and  forty 
days  in  those  times  was  an  age — without  honoring  it  with 
his  presence.  He  failed  to  comprehendlhat  with  a  nation  like 
the  French,  a  legislative  assembly,  whatever  it  may  be,  will 
always  command  an  enormous  power,  even  while  it  w^ould 
seem  to  be  buried  in  slumber ;  that  the  multitude  attaches 
itself,  whether  from  duty,  or  interest,  or  weakness,  or  habit, 
to  the  external  signs  and  the  unity  of  authority ;  that  the 
government  can  preserve  itself  in  a  revolution  only  by  vigi- 
lant activity  and  making  itself  constantly  seen  and  felt  in 
the  hands  that  hold  it ;  that  it  must  never  stop,  never  retire, 
never  rest  secure,  never  repose,  never  sleep.  Robespierre 
slept.  He  imagined  he  could  always  maintain  his  ascend- 
ency over  the  Convention  and  the  Committees.  He  accused 
them  without  supporting  himself  by  insurrection.  He  dis- 
covered his  design  before  he  was  ready.  He  set  his  foot 
upon  a  shifting  ground  which  was  changing  every  day,  and 
with  which  he  was  no  longer  acquainted ;  he  stumbled,  and 
his  accomplices,  for  fear  of  falling  themselves,  only  pushed 
him  into  the  abyss. 

But  the  vulgar,  struck  with  the  magnitude  of  events,  al- 
ways suppose  men  of  action  to  have  vast  schemes  and  deep- 
laid  contrivances.  They  will  have  something  marvellous 
in  the  causes,  because  there  is  such  in  the  effects.  They 
forget  that  in  France,  especially,  it  is  the  unforeseen  that 
governs.  Revolutions  spring  from  the  successive  generation 
of  facts,  sometimes  from  accident,  scarce  ever  from  the  pre- 
meditated will  of  a  man,  a  party,  or  a  system. 

Another  common  error  is  that  of  imagining  an  admirable 


40  T  H  E      C  0  N  V  E  N  T  I  O  N  . 

force  and  iiiilly  in  the  organization  of  the  Convention.  There 
was  no  such  thing.  Repeatedly  it  owed  its  safety  but  to  mere 
chance.  In  the  first  place,  it  had  been  well  nigh  subverted 
on  the  31st  May,  by  the  Girondists.  At  a  later  period,  Dan- 
ton  would  liave  triumphed  over  it,  were  it  not  for  a  ruse  of 
Saint-Just.  The  cowardice  and  imbecility  of  Henriot  alone 
prevented  Robespierre,  proscribed  the  8th  Thermidor  but 
rescued  immediately,  from  becoming  again  its  master.  Were 
it  not  for  an  opportune  charge  of  cavalry,  the  populace,  drunk 
with  carnage  and  blood,  had  gone  oil  to  deliberate,  the  1st 
Prairial,  in  the  sanctuary  of  the  legislature,  headed  by  some 
insurgent  deputies,  after  having  broken  open  the  doors  of 
the  hall,  massacred  Ferrand,  and  dispersed  the  Convention. 
Lastly,  were  it  not  for  the  hero  of  the  13lh  Vendemiaire,  the 
sections  of  Paris  would  have  slain  on  the  spot  the  whole 
national  representation. 

The  Mountainists,  like  the  rest,  suffered  from  the  anar- 
•chy  of  action  and  opinion.  There  were  several  Moun- 
tains ;  the  Mountain  of  Marat,  who  stood  all  alone  since  he 
was  repudiated  by  both  Danton  and  Robespierre  ;  the  Moun- 
tain of  Danton  and  his  friends  Camille  Dcsmoulins,  Legcndre, . 
and  Lacroix ;  the  Mountain  of  Robespierre,  Couthon,  and 
Saint-Just ;  the  Mountain  of  Billaud-Varennes,  Tallim, 
Barrere,  Collot-d'Herbois ;  the  Mountain  of  Bourbotte  and 
Gougon.  They  befouled  each  other  by  turns  with  mire 
and  blood.  Such,  unfortunately,  is  the  history  of  all  par- 
ties in  almost  all  assemblies.  In  times  of  peace,  abuse ;  in 
times  of  revolution,  death. 

Let  it  then  no  more  be  said  that  the  Convention  was  a 
body  perfectly  free.  Orderly,  consistent,  controlling,  arbiter 
of  fact  as  well  as  law,  and  absolute  and  spontaneous  mistress 
of  its  own  movements.  The  Convention,  from  its  opening 
down  to  the  destruction  of  the  Girondists,  was  but  an  arena 
of  death  between  the  two  parties.  After  the  Girondists, 
obedience  unquestioning.  Under  Robespierre,  terror  and 
silence.  After  Robespierre,  counter-terror,  with  rare  inter- 
missions. 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  41 

To  decree  unanimously  the  arrest  of  the  Girondists,  unan- 
imously that  of  Danton,  unanimously  Saint-Just ;  to  vote 
unanimously,  the  8tii  Thermidor,  the  printing  of  Robes- 
pierre's speech,  and  the  next  day  his  death ;  was  that  rea- 
son, consistency,  liberty  ?  Strange  situation  !  the  Convention 
proved  itself  the  most  sovereign  and  the  most  subject  of  all 
our  assemblies,  the  most  speech-making  and  most  mute,  the 
most  gesticulating  and  most  serious,  the  most  independent 
at  intervals  and  most  continuously  domineered  •'  and  it  is 
precisely  because  it  was  at  the  disposal  of  the  Revolutionary 
Government,  an  instrument,  pov/erful,  dependent,  passive, 
undivided,  that  this  government  was  able  to  mow  down  its 
enemies  all  around  it,  and  impose  upon  them  the  silence  of 
victory  or  of  terror. 

Strictly,  the  Convention  was  but  the  chief  secretary  of 
the  Revolution.  The  Committees  of  public  safety  and  of 
general  security  governed  alone.  To  this  dictatorship  of 
the  Committees,  much  rather  than  to  the  Convention,  it  is 
that  v/e  are  to  attribute  all  the  evil  that  was  then  committed, 
and  also  all  that  was  achieved  of  great  and  victorious.  What 
men  of  iron  were  all  those  members  of  the  Committees  of 
public  safety  and  general  security  !  what  obstinacy  of  will ! 
what  precision  of  direction  !  what  promptitude  of  execution  ! 
War,  marine,  finance,  provisioning,  police,  internal  affairs, 
foreign  relations,  legislation,  they  were  adequate  to,  and  at 
home  in  all !  They  made  speeches  at  the  Jacobin  clubs, 
deliberated  in  the  Committees,  made  reports  to  the  Conven- 
tion, worked  fifteen  hours  a  day,  drew  up  plans  of  attack 
and  defence,  corresponded  with  fourteen  armies,  and  organ- 
ized victory. 

At  the  same  time  kings,  deputies  and  ministers,  regulators 
and  reporters,  chiefs  and  agents,  they  sustained  the  weight 
of  the  government  in  its  whole  and  its  details.  Power  over- 
flowed, so  to  speak,  in  their  hands.  It  was  co-extensive 
with  their  will,  and  limited  but  by  the  scaffold.  If  they 
dared  too  far,  they  were  called  dictators ;  if  not  enough, 

4* 


42  T  II  E      C  O  N  V  E  N  T  1  O  N  . 

conspirators.     Onmipotent.  over  all,  but  responsible  for  all — 
responsible  by  death  for  success  as  for  defeat. 

The  office  of  representative  was  not  in  those  times  a 
place  of  leisure  or  of  profit.  Files  of  cannon,  with  the 
matches  lighted,  were  to  be  passed  through  in  going  to  the 
Assembly.  Tlie  way  was  lined  with  hedges  of  pikes  and 
muskets.  You  entered  the  hall  a  king,  you  knew  not  if 
you  should  not  come  out  an  outlaw.  The  president,  Boissy- 
d'Anglais  put  on  his  hat,  without  blinking,  before  the  severed 
head  of  the  deputy  Ferrand,  which  some  women,  with  torn 
hair  and  covered  with  blood,  were  hoisting  on  the  top  of  a 
pike.  Laujuinais  coolly  continued  his  speech,  Vv'hile  the 
pistol  of  the  assassin  v/as  resting  upon  his  ear.  Robespierre, 
with  his  javv  all  shattered,  lay  on  the  floor  in  a  room  ad- 
joining the  Convention.  Some  other  deputies  stabbed  them- 
selves  not  two  paces  distant,  in  the  court-room  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary tribunal.  Others  drank  poison,  to  escape  the  ex- 
ecutioner.    These  were  spectacles  quite  ordinary. 

Between  political  parties  who  decimate  and  immolate  one 
another,  pity  and  hope  find  no  place.  Mountainists  against 
Girondists,  Mountainists  against  Mountainists,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  combat :  combating,  it  was  necessary  to  vanquish  j 
vanquished,  it  was  inevitable  to  die. 

Was  Vergniaud  a  federalist  ?  Was  Danton  conspiring 
against  the  republic  ?  Was  Robespierre  aspiring  to  the 
dictatorship  ?  This  is  what  sudden  arrests  and  turbulent 
proceedings,  without  documents,  witliout  proofs,  without 
witnesses,  without  defence,  without  confrontation,  without 
forms  or  rules  of  trial,  without  free  accusers,  without  an  im- 
partial tribunal,  without  a  serious  jury,  have  not  as  yet 
sufficiently  shown,  in  my  eyes  at  least.  They  were  de- 
nounced, stigmatized,  and  decimated  by  each  other ;  they 
have  not  been  impartially  judged. 

History  will  say  that  these  men  had  been  by  turns  pro- 
scribers  and  proscribed,  judges  and  victims  ;  that  they  had 
been  fanatical  rather  than  ambitious, — rather  enthusiastic 
than  cruel.     It  will  say  that  the  vices  of  these  times  are  to 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  43 

be  imputed  rather  to  the  nature  of  revoluiionary  institutions, 

than  to  the  men  who  served  as  their  instruments 

The  accounts  given  of  the  Convention,  even  those  written 
still  in  our  own  day,  contain  more  romance  than  history. 
We  invest  the  men  of  1793  with  our  own  opinions,  our 
ideas,  our  systems  of  the  moment,  our  prejudices,  our 
Utopias,  and  with  a  certain  cast  of  mind  which  they  never 
had,  and  wijich,  let  us  own,  we  had  not  ourselves  ten 
years  ago.  Confusion  of  opinions  reigns  here  as  in  all  else. 
Thus,  for  example,  some  will  have  it  that  Robespierre  was 
but  the  stipendiary  agent  of  the  Bourbons  and  England ; 
others  that  he  aspired  openly  to  be  dictator ; — these,  that  he 
contemplated  the  establishment  of  absolute  equality ;  those, 
that  his  sole  pleasure  was  to  steep  liimself  in  blood,  like  a 
hyena.  Many  will  tell  you,  with  an  air  of  proTundity,  knit- 
ting the  brows  and  shaking  the  head,  that  Robespierre  has 
not  been  understood,  and  they  thus  give  loose  to  all  sorts  of 
hypotheses.  After  this,  I  too  may  be  permitted  to  form  one 
m  my  turn  ;  and  if,  after  having  read  and  re-read  his 
latest  speeches  in  the  Convention,  I  have  penetrated  their 
meaning,  I  should  say  that  Robespierre  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  on  the  point  of  arresting  the  car  of  terror  on  the  steep 
of  the  Revolution. 

But  I  might  well  be  mistaken  in  launchin::  into  the  inde- 
fitliteness  of  supposition.  1  am  no  publicist  of  imagination. 
I  do  not  wish  to  imitate  those  commentators,  who,  in  their  blind 
worship  of  antiquity,  ascribe  to  Virgil  and  Homer  certain 
artifices  of  style  and  imitative  melodies,  which  Homer  and 
Virgil  had  never  dreamt  of  In  this  way  our  publicists  of 
.imagination  have  discovered,  after  the  event,  that  Robespierre 
and  Saint-Just  had  ready  organized  certain  plans  of  demo- 
cratic reform  and  levelling,  of  which  their  discourses  do  not 
give  even  the  slightest  intimation.  People  are  unwilling  to 
see  all  leaders  of  revolutions  possess  themselves,  by  storm, 
of  the  existing  government ;  after  which,  if  their  adversaries 
resist,  and  as  long  as  they  resist,  they  tumble  them  from  off 
the  walls  into  the  trench.     These  men  are  but  the  instru- 


44  THE      CONVENTION. 

men's  of  a  Providence,  of  whom  they  think  themselves 
movers.  They  are  chained  dov/n  to  a  certain  career  by  the 
succession  of  facts  and  by  the  logic  of  principles,  which 
hurry  them  on  unconsciously,  and  conduct  them  often 
whither  they  do  not  wish  to  go,  and  especially  whither  they 
do  not  know  tlmt  they  are  going.  For  the  rest,  a  thing  in- 
credible !  Robespierre  and  Saint-Just  viewed  nature,  as  she 
is  seen  on  the  stage  and  amid  the  decorations  of  the  opera,  in 
pastoral  perspective,  with  singing  choirs  of  venerable  old 
men  and  bands  of  rose-crowned  village  girls.  They  moral- 
ized speculatively  on  liberty  and  equality,  with  less  elo- 
quence  than  Rousseau,  but  also  with  less  pedagoguism. 
As  organizers,  they  were  neither  more  nor  less  advanced  than 
the  rest  of  the  Mountainists.  They  lived  from  day  to  day, 
like  all  party  leaders,  in  times  of  open  revolution  :  too  en- 
grossed with  the  care  of  getting  rid  of  their  enemies  and 
defending  themselves,  to  think  of  aught  else.  In  them,  ac- 
tion left  no  time  for  thought,  and  the  present  absorbed  the 
future. 

The  Revolution  swept  them  off, — overwhelmed  them  in 
its  waves.  But  an  edifice  is  not  built  in  the  current,  but 
on  the  shore. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  what  remains  incontestable, — and  this 
is  all  we  are  concerned  with, — is  the  prodigious  impulse  im- 
pressed upon  the  world  by  the  colossal  might  of  France, 
when,  bursting  from  around  it  the  chains  of  absolute  mon- 
archy, it  arose  and  walked  forth  erect  in  its  strength  and 
liberty.  Every  village  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Rhine, 
from  the  Alps  to  the  ocean,  received  and  nourished  the  seeds 
of  liberty.  The  contempt  of  death,  the  tragic  grandeur  of 
the  events,  the  enthusiasm  of  glory,  attempered  those  souls 
of  steel, — those  hardy  generations  of  our  fathers.  The 
France  of  that  day  was  but  one  vast  camp,  a  manufactory 
of  muskets  and  cannons,  an  arsenal  of  war.  Mothers  made 
offering  of  their  sons  to  the  country ;  young  husbands  tore 
themselves  from  the  arms  of  their  wives;  legions  of  sol- 
diers sprung  up  as  if  out  of  the  earth.     Barefooted,  without 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  45 

clothes,  without  bread,  often  without  ammunition,  they  car- 
ried,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  the  intrenchments  and  the  bat- 
teries of  the  enemy.  What  captains  !  Foubert,  buried  with 
the  banner  of  Novi  for  his  winding-sheet ;  Hoche,  the  paci- 
ficator of  La  Vendee  ;  Marceau,  the  hero  of  Wissemburg  ; 
Pichegru,  that   rapid  conqueror  of  Holland ;  and  Moreau, 

who  since but  then  he  triumphed  at  Nerwind  ! 

These  generals  of  the  Republic  were  after  to  become  the 
glorious  marshals  of  the  Empire.  Ney,  Soult,  Murat, 
Massena,  Lannes,  Lefevre,  Davoust,  Augereau,  and  above 
them  all  Bonaparte,  greater  perhaps  than  Napoleon.  This 
young  general  of  the  Convention,  who  bombarded  St.  Roche, 
was  destined  one  day  to  shake  all  Europe  with  his  tread, 
and  to  sit,  crowned  by  the  Pope,  upon  the  throne  of  the 
Caesars.  Those  ragged  soldiers  were  to  make  with  him  the 
circuit  of  the  globe,  encamp  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyramids, 
conquer  Italy,  and,  wreathed  with  the  laurels  of  Arcole,  of 
Aboukir,  of  Marengo,  of  Austerlitz,  and  of  Jena,  to  plant 
their  triumphant  eagles  on  the  towers  of  Vienna,  Lisbon, 
Rome,  Amsterdam,  Madrid,  Berlin,  and  Moscow.  Around 
the  Revolution,  as  if  to  form  it  a  magnificent  retinue, 
moved  a  host  of  men  of  genius  :  some  already  illustrious  ; 
others  on  the  eve  of  becoming  so  : — in  the  sciences,  Laplace, 
Lagrange,  Biot,  Carnot,  Monge,  Cuvier.  Chaptal,  Berthollet, 
Larrey,  Pinel,  Cabanis,  Bichat,  Dupuytren  ;  in  the  fine 
arts,  David,  Gros,  Girodet ;  in  literature,  Lebrun,  Fon- 
taines, Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  Chenier,  Chateaubriand  ; 
in  politics,  Talleyrand,  and  Sieyes  ;  in  legislation,  Camba- 
ccres,  Treilhard,  Bcrlicr,  Zangiacomi,  Daunon,  Merlin  ; 
in  administration,  Portalis,  Defermon,  Regnault  de  Saint- 
Jean  d'Angely,  Allent,  Rcgnier,  Thibeaudeau,  Fouche, 
Real,  Pastoret,  Simeon,  Boulay  de  la  Meurthe. 

The  Convention  reigned  then  over  a  period  of  no  vulgar 
order,  or  a  generation  without  virtue,  genius  and  glory.  It 
had  its  warriors,  its  savants,  its  artists,  its  jurists,  its  states- 
men.    It  had  also  its  orators.  • 

Parliamentary  eloquence  always  breathes  the  nassions, 


46  THE     CONVENTION. 

and  takes  the  hue  of  the  times.  The  eloquence  of  the  Con- 
vention, it  must  be  owned,  was  often  rather  the  eloquence 
of  a  club,  or  a  court  of  sessions,  than  the  lofty  and  learned 
eloquence  of  the  tribune,  than  the  eloquence  of  Mirabeau. 

In  respect  of  art,  of  style,  of  science,  of  arrangement,  of 
proof,  of  method,  there  is  no  Mountainist  or  Girondist  orator 
who  can  compare  with  the  princes  of  the  modern  tribune. 
-In  respect  of  oratorical  effect,  on  the  contrary,  I  am  not 
aware  that  any  one  of  these  princes  has  ever,  notwithstanding 
the  most  wonderful  efforts  of  speech,  wrested  a  solitary 
vote  from  the  trafficking  and  narrow-minded  tenacity  of  our 
burgess  Chambers,  while  Robespierre,  Barrere,  and  especially 
Danton  have  several  times  carried  off  decrees  of  the  Con- 
vention by  main  force. 

These  men  were  powers,  and  we  are  very  excellent 
organ-players, — the  finest  sounds  in  the  world,  but  nothing 
beside. 

The  eloquence  of  those  times  was  uncouth,  inflated, 
strong,  gigantic,  like  the  Revolution  it  was  defending  ; — . 
ours  is  sometimes  debased  to  the  proportions  of  those  Don 
Quixotes,  with  lame  legs  and  long  arms,  which  are  seen  on 
the  sign-boards  of  our  village  taverns  ; — theirs  smelled  of 
cannon  powder  ; — ours  sometimes  savors  of  molasses  and 
beet-root ; — theirs  exalted  the  intellectual  interests  of  soci- 
ety ; — ours  the  material  interests  ; — theirs  was  vehement  to 
denunciation,  coarse  to  outrage ; — ours  is  sneering,  in- 
tricate, loquacious,  hypocritical ; — theirs  led  its  orators  to 
poverty,  to  persecution,  to  ostracism,  the  prison,  the  scaf- 
fold ; — ours  elevates  its  heroes  by  flowery  ascents  to  the 
purple  and  fine  linen  of  opulence  and  the  honors  of  the  min- 
istry. 

Whether  from  difficulty  of  invention,  from  custom,  or  from 
a  classical  education,  the  republicans  of  1793  endeavored 
to  revive,  in  their  costumes,  their  attitudes,  and  their  bar- 
angues,  Sparta,  Athens,  and  Rome.  Strange  !  these  most  sav- 
age of  demagogues  had  a  sincere  admiration  for  the  laws,  the 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  47 

manners,  the  apparel,  the  usages,  the  character,  the  speeches, 
the  life  and  the  death  of  the  proudest  and  most  insolent  aris- 
tocrats of  antiquity. 

The  Greek  bonnet  was  assumed,  the  plaited  head-dress, 
and  the  long  military  cloak.  Letters,  the  sole  consolation 
of  sensitive  and  delicate  minds,  were  proscribed.  The  dear- 
est friends  were  condemned  to  death,  in  affectation  of  the  dis- 
natured  paternity  of  the  first  Brutus.  Kings  were  detested 
with  the  frenzied  hatred  of  Horatius  Codes.  Some  devoted 
themselves,  some  opened  their  veins,  some  tore  out  their  vi- 
tals, some  plunged  desperately  into  the  doom  that  awaited 
them,  after  the  manner  of  Decius,  of  Regulus,  of  the  senators 
of  Tiberius  and  of  Nero  in  Rome  enslaved.  Oath  was  made 
to  die  on  their  legislative  seats,  like  the  old  Romans  in  their 
curule  chairs.  The  dictatorship  of  the  Committees  and  of 
the  Convention  was  threatened  with  the  dags^er  of  Harmo- 
dius,  and  with  the  Tarpeian  rock.  People  alfected  the  fru- 
gality of  Cincinnatus  and  of  the  Spartans.  The  name  of 
their  enemies  was  written  in  r^d  ink,  on  the  proscription 
lists,  in  commemoration  of  Sylla.  The  immortality  of  the 
soul  was  decreed,  in  view  of  the  dying  Cato.  To  dispense 
from  wearing  any,  it  was  observed,  that  the  democrat,  Jesus 
Christ,  had  never  worn  breeches.  You  were  outlawed,  with- 
out trial,  as  the  proscribed  were  by  the  Romans  interdicted 
fire  and  water.  Nature  was  stifled,  justice  was  violated, 
liberty  was  abused,  virtue  itself  was  exaggerated,  in  order 
the  nearer  to  resemble  them. 

So  much  for  the  exterior  part  of  oratory,  which  is  con- 
versant about  forms,  movements,  and  imaires.  As  for  their 
political  philosophy,  financial  economy  and  definitions  of 
rights  and  duties,  it  was  the  philosophy,  economy  and  the 
definitions  of  Rousseau  and  of  the  Encyclopedists. 

At  the  Commune  of  Paris,  at  the  Club  of  the  Jacobins,  in 
the  popular  societies,  in  the  government  Committees,  in  the 
bulletins  of  the  army,  at  the  bar  of  the  Assembly,  in  the 
public  places,  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold,  everywhere  and  on 
all  occasions,  it  was  substantially  the  same  ideas,  the  same 


48  THE      CONVENTION. 

vehemence,  the  same  grandeur,  the  same  figures,  the  same 
exclamations,  the  same  imitations,  the  same  apologies,  the 
same  vocabulary,  the  same  language. 

In  this  revolutionary  drama,  in  this  oratorical  exhibition, 
so  vivid,  so  excited,  so  stirring,  so  terrible,  all  is  disorder, 
all  is  agitation,  all  is  confusion — the  clubs,  the  debates,  the 
petitioners,  the  populace ;  all  places  are  common,  the  bar  of 
the  house,  the  president's  chair,  and  the  tribunes. 

From  the  ceiling  of  the  hall  to  the  doors,  in  the  lobbies 
both  inside  and  outside,  all  played  their  parts,  all  was  action, 
combat,  crisis,  applause,  disapprobation.  The  sections  armed, 
impelled,  guided  by  unknown,  invisible  leaders,  stormed  the 
Convention,  threw  down  all  before  them,  pointed  out  the  sus- 
pected deputies,  and  demanded  that,  before  the  house  ad- 
journ, they  should  fall  beneath  the  sword  of  the  law.  "  The 
people  has  risen,  it  is  standing,  it  is  waiting !" 

Extraordinary  times  !  singular  contrast !  That  Assembly 
which  boldly  flung  its  challenges  of  war  to  all  the  kings  of 
Europe,  quailed  itself  before  the  threats  and  insults  of  a  few 
foaming  demagogues,  and  pushed  its  forbearance  or  rather 
its  pusillanimity  so  far  as  to  accord  them  the  honors  of  the 
sitting. 

Sometimes,  the  Sections  came  to  stimulate  the  tardiness  of 
Robespierre  himself,  and  did  not  consider  his  constitution  to 
be  all  sufficiently  democratic. 

"You  who  occupy  the  Mountain,  worthy  sans-culottes, 
will  you  remain  forever  slumbering  on  the  summit  of  that 
immortal  rock  ?  How  long  will  you  suffer  the  forestallers 
to  drink  from  their  golden  cups  the  purest  blood  of  the  peo- 
ple ?  Mountainists,  arise  in  your  might,  nor  close  your 
career  in  ignominy." 

The  Mountain  was  indignant,  but  swallowed  the  insult. 
The  Revolutionary  Commune  of  Paris,  the  mayor  at  its 
head,  admitted  to  the  bar,  spoke  as  follows : 

"  Mountain  forever  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  history,  be 
the  Sinai  of  Frenchmen  !  Hurl  forth  amid  thy  thunders  the 
eternal  decrees  of  justice  and  of  the  popular  will !  quake 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  4[) 

and  tremble  at  its  voice  !  Holy  Mount !  be  the  crater  whoso 
burning:  lava  shall  consume  the  wicked  !" 

And  pursuing  this  metaphor,  Gaston  replied  :  "  Paris,  like 
Mtndi,  will  vomit  from  her  bosom  the  calcined  aristocracy." 

The  general  mind,  elevated  gradually  by  the  excitement 
of  speaking,  was  transported  into  a  state  of  frenzy.  Le- 
gendre  used  to  exclaim,  ''  Should  a  tyrant  arise,  he  will  die 
by  my  hand.  I  swear  it  by  Brutus  !"  And  Drouet :  "Bo 
ye  brigands  for  the  public  weal,  I  say,  be  brigands!" 

Those  are,  for  the  rest,  but  accidents  of  situation  and  of 
character,  and  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  all  the  actors  of 
the  revolutionary  drama  grinned  and  gamboled  like  maniacs 
and  idiots.  How  many  of  them,  born  in  or  near  the  lowest 
ranks  of  the  people,  have  evinced  an  unconquerable  love  of 
equality,  a  becoming  originality  of  bearing  and  language,  a 
strong  and  colored  eloquence,  a  vehement  diction,  a  prompt- 
ness of  attack,  an  intrepidity  of  defence,  a  disinterestedness,  a 
noble  poverty,  a  respect  for  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  a 
filial  affection  for  the  country,  a  renouncement  of  all  personal 
and  local  interests,  a  generous  and  powerful  instinct  of  glory, 
of  grandeur,  and  of  union,  which  is  found  no  more  scarcely 
since  their  departure. 

There — for  it  was  a  field  of  battle — there  was  encamped 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Girondists,  Gaudet,  whose  eloquence 
came  from  the  heart,  but  who  shed  its  light  only  at  rare  in- 
tervals. It  was  he,  who,  looking  Robespierre  in  the  face, 
said  to  him :  "  As  long  as  a  drop  of  blood  shall  flov/  in  my  veins, 
1  have  a  heart  too  high,  I  have  a  soul  too  proud,  to  acknow- 
ledge any  other  earthly  sovereign  than  the  people." 

— Louvet,  a  witty  and  vigorous  writer,  an  animated  and 
brilliant  orator,  who  opened  the  attack  against  the  Mountain 
with  more  courage  than  prudence. 

— Languinais,  a  headstrong  Breton,  inflexible  in  his  opin- 
ions, a  learned  publicist.  He  shrunk  from  no  danger.  He 
compounded  with  no  sophism.  Feeble  in  body,  intrepid  in 
spirit,  he  fought  word  for  word,  gesture  for  gesture.  He 
would  hold  by,  he  would  rivet  himself  to,  the  tribune.    When 

5 


50  THE      CONVENTION. 

his  resignation  as  deputy  was  clamorously  called  for,  Avith 
threats  and  abuses,  he  let  fall  with  majesty  the  following 
beautiful  words :  "  Remember  that  the  victim  ornamented 
with  flowers  and  led  to  the  altar,  was  not  insulted  bv  the 
priest  who  was  about  to  immolate  it." 

— Bazire,  who  uttered  a  sublime  apothegm  :  the  draft  of 
a  Constitution  being  under  discussion,  he  said  :  "  The  French 
people  do  not  make  peace  with  an  enemy  who  occupies  its 
territory." 

Mercier :  "  Provisions  of  this  nature  are  written  or  erased 
with  the  point  of  the  sword ;  have  you  then  made  a  treaty 
with  victory  ?" 

Bazire  :  '-  We  have  made  it  with  death." 

— Camille  Desmoulins,  endowed  with  an  imagination  too 
ardent,  and  a  heart  too  susceptible.  He  loved  liberty  to 
idolatry,  and  his  friends  better  than  himself.  With  giddy 
temerity,  he  attempted  to  thwart  the  career  of  the  Revolu- 
tion.  He  would  drive  it  backwards,  after  having  launched 
it  on  its  impetuous  course,  and  he  was  crushed  beneath  the 
wheels  of  the  car  that  bore  the  fortunes  of  Robespierre. 

Camille  had  an  impressive  countenance,  and  his  gestures 
were  oratorical.  But  an  impediment  of  speech  forbade  him 
the  tribune,  and  his  hot-headedness  did  not  allow  him  to 
connect,  to  arrange  his  ideas  in  a  skilful  and  temperate  dis- 
course. A  pamphleteer  rather  than  orator,  a  pamphleteer 
ingenious,  but  somewhat  coarse.  Passionate,  simple,  pictu- 
resque in  style,  but  too  often  destitute  of  logic  and  of  taste, 
his  pamphlets  are  at  times  gloomy,  and  at  other  times  bril- 
liant, always  incoherent,  like  a  sick  man's  dreams,  some- 
times, and  at  intervals,  full  of  happy  raillery,  naturalness, 
and  grace.  He  began  to  fear  at  length  for  those  who  were 
afraid.  He  suffered  for  those  who  were  suffering.  He  bor- 
rowed the  vigorous  pencil  of  Tacitus  to  paint  the  tyrants  of 
the  people.  He  turned  round  and  round  in  their  wounds 
the  dagger  of  sarcasm.  He  tried  remorse,  he  tried  pity,  but 
it  v/as  all  too  late.  Vainly  did  he  precipitate  himself,  head 
foremost,  from  the  bank  into  the  torrent  for  the  nurnosf"  <^^ 


D  AN  T  O  N.  51 

restraining  and  guiding  it ;  the  wave  rolled  on'and  the  tor- 
rent swept  him  away.  He  was  cast  into  the  dungeons  of 
the  Revolutionary  tribunals,  and  it  is  thence  that,  first,  as  he 
was  about  to  ascend  the  scaffold,  he  addressed  to  his  young 
wife,  to  his  Lucile,  that  touching  letter  of  which  the  close 
cannot  be  read  without  tears :  "  Adieu,  Lucile,  my  dearest 
Lucile,  I  feel  the  shore  of  life  receding  before  me.  I  still 
behold  my  Lucile  !  my  longing  eyes  still  see  thee  !  my  lov- 
ing arms  entwine  thee  !  my  fettered  hands  embrace  thee ! 
and  my  severed  head  reposes  on  thy  bosom.     I  die." 

— Vergniaud,  a  man  of  great  flexibility  and  compass  of  in- 
tellect, a  sincere  patriot,  an  orator,  elegant,  unctuous,  meta- 
phorical— too  metaphorical,  perhaps — of  whom  this  apo- 
thegm has  been  retained  :  "  The  Revolution  is  like  Saturn, 
it  devours  its  own  children." 

And  this  comparison,  at  the  time  so  much  applauded : 
"If  our  principles  are  propagated  but  slowly  in  foreign  na- 
tions, it  is  that  their  splendor  is  obscured  by  anarchical  so- 
phistries, by  disorderly  movements,  and  above  all  by  a  blood- 
stained crape.  When  the  peoples  of  the  earth  fell  pros- 
trate for  the  first  time  before  the  sun,  was  it,  think  you, 
while  he  was  veiled  with  those  destructive  vapors  which 
engender  the  tempests  ?  No,  doubtless,  it  was  when,  in  the 
full  effulgence  of  his  glory,  he  was  advancing  through  the 
immensity  of  space,  and  shedding  on  the  universe  fertility, 
life,  and  light." 

And  his  reply  to  Robespierre :  "  If  we  are  guilty,  and 
that  you  do  not  send  us  before  the  Revolutionary  tribunal, 
you  are  untrue  to  the  people.  If  we  are  calumniated  and 
you  do  not  declare  it,  you  are  untrue  to  justice." 

And  this  apostrophe :  "  Take  care  that,  in  the  midst  of 
your  triumphs,  France  do  not  resemble  those  Egyptian 
monuments  which  have  withstood  the  ravages  of  time.  The 
stranger,  as  he  passes,  is  astonished  at  their  grandeur.  But 
if  he  would  enter  them,  what  does  he  find  ?  heaps  of  inan- 
miate  ashes,  and  the  silence  of  the  grave  !" 

Search  well^  and  examinp  all  thf^  p.^lebrated  nnssao-ps  of 


52  THE     CONVENTION. 

oratory.  It  is  always  imagery  that  strikes  the  muUitude 
in  the  legislative  Assemblies  as  elsewhere. 

For  the  rest,  he  was  an  orator  without  substance,  without 
solidity,  without  argumentative  force,  ill-adapted  to  sway 
those  stormy  assemblies  wherein  petulance  of  gesture  and 
familiar  insolence  of  phrase  and  expression  are  the  necessary 
accompaniments  of  the  discourse. 

Vergniaud  committed,  like  the  other  Girondists,  the  un- 
pardonable fault  of  attacking  persons  rather  than  things,  and 
irritating  and  augmenting  the  Mountain  by  his  violence. 
Posterity  will  blame  equally  both  the  parties,  who  turned,  at 
the  very  outset,  the  legislative  hall  into  an  arena  of  gladiators. 

In  front  of  the  Girondists  and  on  the  opposite  benches  of 

the  amphitheatre,  were  seated  the  Mountainists,  their  mortal 
enemies. 

— Barrere,  an  elegant  reporter  of  the  victories  which  Car- 
not  organized.  He  extemporized  the  motions,  the  decrees,  the 
addresses,  as  Danton  did  his  speeches.  Less  hyperbolioal 
in  his  imagery,  more  chastened,  more  literate,  more  obser- 
vant of  the  rules  of  grammar  and  the  proprieties  of  language  ; 
bold  at  once  and  discreet;  impetuous  upon  occasion,  but 
always  provident;  sagacious  of  the  direction  of  .the  wind 
and  of  the  destination  of  the  storm ;  a  keen  diplomatist,  a 
keener  deputy. 

— Marat,  a  man  of  ferocious  instincts  and  of  a  base  and  de- 
graded figure,  whom  Danton  repudiated  and  Robespierre 
would  never  approach ;  a  universal  denouncer,  who  used  to 
invoke  Saint  Guillotine,  excite  the  populace  to  assassination, 
and,  for  mere  pastime,  call  for  two  hundred  thousand  victims, 
the  King's  headj  and  a  dictator  !  A  man  of  whom  you 
could  not  say  whether  he  was  more  cruel  than  insane ;  a 
buffoon  and  a  trifler,  without  dignity,  without  decency,  with- 
out moderation.  He  would  toss  about  on  his  seat  like  a  de- 
moniac, leap  up,  clap  his  hands,  burst  into  loud  laughter, 
besiege  the  tribune,  frown  at  the  speaker,  and  let  the  mob 
place  ridiculously  on  his  head,  in  presence  of  the  Conven- 
tion, a  crown  of  oaken  leaves.     Addressing  the  Assembly, 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  53 

he  was  in  the  habit  of  repeating  with  emphasis  :  "  I  call  you 
to  a  sense  of  decency,  if  you  have  any  left." 

*  Of  his  adversaries  he  used  to  say  :  ''  What  a  vile  clique  ? 
O  the  hags !  O  the  prison-birds  !"  He  would  cry  to  one 
of  the  speakers :  "  Silence,  foul  fellow  !"  or,  "  .Thou  art  a 
scoundrel !  thou  art  a  driveller  !  thou  art  an  imbecile  !" 

He  was  abundantly  repaid,  for  from  all  sides  issued  in- 
dignant exclamations  of,  "  Hold  your  tongue,  execrable 
wretch  !"  He  was  abhorred  by  the  Gironde  especially,  and 
by  most  of  his  colleagues,  who  showered  upon  him  expres- 
sions of  detestation  and  contempt,  all  received,  it  is  fair  to  say, 
with  a  tranquillity  and  even  an  effrontery  grotesquely  good- 
humored.  Marat  was  no  orator.  He  was  not  even  a  vul- 
gar spouter.  But  no  more  was  he  a  polemic  without  some 
talent ;  and  he  sometimes  had  the  perspicacity  to  divine  the 
ambitious  among  the  leaders  under  their  disguises,  and  the 
courage  to  tear  off  their  mask. 

— Billaud-Varennes,  harsh,  morose,  atrabilious,  inexora- 
ble ;  a  martyr  himself  to  the  republican  creed,  and  who  be- 
lieved that,  in  Robespierre,  he  was  immolating  a  tyrant- 

— Couthon,  the  counsellor  of  Robespierre,  of  whom  Saint- 
Just  was  the  executive ;  a  paralytic  in  both  legs,  and  alone 
unable  to  stir  among  all  those  active  spirits  :  Couthon,  who, 
sentenced  to  death,  on  pretext  of  having  designed  to  crawl 
up  to  the  rank  of  sovereignty,  contented  himself  with  re- 
plying ironically  :  "  I  aspire  to  become  a  king  !" 

— Saint-Just,  a  republican  by  conviction,  austere  by  tem- 
perament, disinterested  by  character,  a  leveller  upon  system, 
a  tribune  in  the  Committees,  a  hero  on  the  battle-field. 
Flis  youth,  which  verged  upon  manhood,  was  ripe  for  great 
designs.  His  capacity  was  not  beneath  his  situation.  A 
gloomy  fire  beamed  in  his  looks.  He  had  a  melancholy  ex- 
pression of  countenance,  a  certain  inclination  for  solitude,  a 
delivery  slow  and  solemn,  a  soul  of  iron  intrepidity,  a  deter- 
mined will,  an  object  ever  fixed  and  distinct  before  his  eyes. 
He  elaborated  his  reports  with  a  studied  dogmatism.  He 
seasoned  them  with  scraps  of  metaphysics  taken  from  Hobbes 

5* 


51  T  II  E      C  O  N  V  E  N  T  I  O  N  . 

and  Rousseau,  and,  to  the  violent  and  expeditious  realities  of 
his  revolutionary  practice,  he  joined  a  social  philosophy  com- 
pounded of  humanitarian  imaginations  and  flowery  reveries. 

Here  are  some  of  his  sayings  :  "  The  fire  of  liberty  has 
refined  us,  as  the  boiling  of  metals  throws  off  from  the  cru- 
cible the  impure  scum."  And  this  word  :  "  Dare  !"  And 
this  other :  "  The  traces  of  liberty  and  of  genius  cannot  be 
effaced  in  the  universe.  The  world  is  void  of  them  since 
the  days  of  the  Romans,  and  their  memory  still  fills  it." 

His  report  against  Danton  is  contrived,  arranged  and  con- 
ducted in  all  its  parts  with  infinite — I  had  almost  said  infer- 
nal— art.  He  begins  by  incriminating  Bazire,  Chabot,  Ca- 
mille  Desmoulins  and  the  others.  He  reserves  Danton  for 
the  last.  There  he  pauses — he  takes  a  survey  of  his  task, 
and  collects  all  his  force  to  encounter  the  giant.  He  reite- 
rates his  proofs,  he  accumulates  them,  he  groups  them  like 
a  battle-axe  ;  and,  to  fire  the  auditory,  he  apostrophizes 
Danton  as  if  he  had  been  present,  as  would  a  criminal  pros- 
ecutor in  a  court  of  assize.  He  unrolls  the  pretended  list 
of  his  treasons,  conspiracies  and  crimes.  He  unveils  his 
private  life,  and  discloses  his  conversations,  even  confiden- 
tial. He  denounces,  he  stigmatizes  him ;  he  refuses  to 
hear  him  in  defence,  he  does  not  hear  him ;  he  judges  him, 
condemns  him,  drags  him  upon  the  scaffold  and  beheads 
him  with  his  discourse,  more  effectually  than  he  would  have 
done  with  the  knife  of  the  guillotine. 

— Robespierre,  an  orator  of  considerable  fluency,  practised 
in  the  harano;ues  of  the  clubs  and  the  contests  of  the  tri- 
bune ;  patient,  taciturn,  dissembling,  envious  of  the  supe- 
riority of  others,  -and  constitutionally  vain  ;  a  master  of  the 
subject  of  discussion  and  of  himself;  giving  vent  to  his  pas- 
sions only  by  muttered  exclamations  ;  neither  so  mediocre 
as  his  enemies  have  made  him,  nor  so  great  as  his  friends 
have  extolled  him ;  thinking  far  too  favorably  and  speaking 
much  too  lengthily  of  himself,  his  services,  his  disinterest- 
edness, his  patriotism,  his  virtue,  his  justice;  bringing  him- 
self incessantly  upon  the  stage  after  laborious  windings  anc? 


D  A  N  T  0  N.  55 

circumlocutions,  and  surcharging  all  his  discourses  with  the 
tiresome  topic  of  his  personality. 

Robespierre  wrote  his  reports,  recited  his  harangues,  and 
scarce  ever  extemporized  but  in  his  replies. 

He  could  sketch  with  ability  the  external  condition  of  the 
political  world.  He  had,  perhaps,  in  a  higher  degree  than 
his  colleagues,  the  views  of  the  statesman ;  and  whether 
vague  instinct  of  ambition,  or  system,  or  ultimate  disgust  of 
anarchy,  he  was  for  unity  and  strength  in  the  executive 
power. 

His  oratorical  manner  was  full  of  allusions  to  Greece  and 
Rome,  and  the  college  truants  who  thronged  the  Assembly 
used  to  listen  valiantly,  with  gaping  mouths,  to  those  stories 
of  antiquity.  Who,  at  the  present  day,  would  speak  in  the 
tribune,  without  smiling  irrepressibly,  of  the  Cretans,  of  La- 
cedemon,  of  the  god  Minos,  of  the  general  Epimenandos,  of 
the  long-gowned  Roman  senators,  of  the  good  Numa  and 
the  nymph  Egeria  ? 

Interrupted  by  Vergniaud,  who  cried  to  him :  "  Conclude  ! 

"     ''Yes,  I  am  going  to  conclude,  and  against  you! 

against  you  who "     And  unrolling  the  long  series  of 

his  charges,  Robespierre  becoming  animated  rose  on  this  oc- 
casion to  real  eloquence.  But,  ordinarily,  his  phraseology 
was  false  and  declamatory. 

Thus,  he  used  to  say :  "  The  Girondists  instigated  in  all 
quarters  the  serpents  of  calumny,  the  demon  of  civil  war,  the 
hydra  of  federalism,  the  ^nonster  of  aristocracy."  These 
four  figures  accumulated  in  one  sentence  are  ridiculous  and 
in  bad  taste. 

He  would  stop  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  his  discourse  to 
interrogate  the  people,  as  if  the  people  were  before  him; 
thus  making  a  gross  abuse  of  rhetoric.  He  was  in  the  habit 
of  also  dealing  out  tedious  philosophical  tirades  about  vir- 
tue,  which  were  palpable  reminiscences  of  Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau. 

He  proceeded  regularly  by  prosopopeias  and  other  figures 
which  escape  in  the  heat  of  oratorical  action,  and  depict 


5G  T  11  E      C  O  N  V  E  N  T  I  O  N  . 

more  vividly  the  thought,  but  wliich  are  entirely  out  of 
place  in  a  dissertation.  Sometimes  his  images  were  clothed 
with  much  eloquence  of  form  :  "  Do  we  calumniate  the  lu- 
minary which  gives  life  to  nature,  because  of  the  light  clouds 
that  glide  over  its  effulgent  face  V  - 

This  other  idea  is  beautiful  :  "  Man's  reason  still  resem- 
bles the  globe  he  inhabits.  One  half  of  it  is  plunged  in  dark- 
ness, when  the  other  is  illuminated." 

But  what  more  misplaced  in  a  report  than  the  following 
accumulation  of  allusions  to  the  men  and  things  of  antiquity  ? 
*'  The  cowards  !  they  dare  denounce  the  foundersof  the  Re- 
public !  the  modern  Tarquins  have  the  assurance  to  call  the 
senate  of  Rome  an  assembly  of  brigands  !  Even  so  did  the 
valets  of  Porsenna  regard  Scevola  as  a  madman.  Accord- 
ing to  the  manifestoes  of  Xerxes,  Aristides  has  pillaged  the 
treasury  of  Greece.  With  hands  full  of  the  plunder  and 
stained  with  the  blood  of  the  Roman  people,  Octavius  and 
Anthony  ordained  throughout  the  earth  that  they  alone  should 
be  deemed  clement,  alone  just,  alone  virtuous.  Tiberius 
and  Sejanus  see  in  Brutus  and  Cassius  but  blood-thirsty  as- 
sassins and  even  cheats." 

For  the  rest,  the  Mountainists  were  unqualified,  except 
perhaps  Barrere  and  Saint-Just,  to  range  their  ideas  in  a 
logical  and  skilful  order,  to  make  for  the  end  and  conclude. 
The  reports  of  Robespierre  will  not  bear  analysis.  They 
are  vitiated  by  redundancy,  confusion  and  bombast. 

Robespierre  scarce  ever  attacked  his  enemies  directly  and 
in  front ;  he  took  them  underneath  and  by  insinuation ;  he 
hurled  against  them  those  indirect  threats,  those  expressions 
of  sinister  significance,  such  as  Tiberius  was  wont  to  throw 
out,  in  the  Roman  Senate,  against  his  appointed  victims. 

Robespierre  was  a  deist,  as  was  also  Saint-Just.  But,  to 
be  a  deist  and  own  it  publicly,  was  to  be  quite  religious  for 
those  times. 

The  day  preceding  his  death,  in  the  meridian  of  his  power, 
when  he  came  to  denounce  to  the  Convention,  the  Commit- 
tees of  public  safety  and  of  general  security,  he  expatiated 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  57 

with  an  affected  complacency,  upon  the  part  of  pontiff  vvliich 
he  performed  on  the  festival  of  the  Supreme  Being.  The 
apostrophe  which  terminates  that  episode  is  not  without  ani- 
mation and  coloring  : 

"Citizens,  you  have  attached  to  the  cause  of  the  Revolu- 
tion every  pure  and  generous  heart.  You  have  exhibited 
it  to  the  world  in  all  the  splendor  of  its  celestial  beauty.  O 
day  forever  to  be  blessed,  when  the  entire  French  people 
arose  to  render  unto  the  author  of  nature,  an  homage  wor- 
thy of  his  acceptance  !  What  a  touching  assemblage  of  all 
the  objects  which  can  delight  the  eyes  and  the  hearts  of 
men !  O  honored  old  age  !  O  generous  ardor  of  the  sons 
of  the  land  !  O  pure  and  simple  joy  of  our  young  citizens ! 
O  delicious  tears  of  doating  mothers  !  O  divine  charm  of 
blended  innocence  and  beauty  !  O  majesty  of  a  great  peo- 
ple, happy  in  the  sentiment  of  its  might,  its  glory  and  its  vir- 
tue !  Being  of  beings !  beamed  the  universe,  fresh  from 
thy  omnipotent  hands,  with  a  light  more  agreeable  to  thine 
eyes  than  did  this  nation,  the  day  when,  breaking  the  yoke 
of  crime  and  of  error,  it  appeared  before  thee  in  an  attitude 
worthy  of  thy  regard  and  of  its  own  destinies  ?" 

There  is  composition  and  art  in  this  scrap.  But  was  it 
suitably  placed  between  a  denunciation  to  death  and  a  medi- 
tated insurrection  ?  The  orators  of  the  Revolution  are  full 
of  such  contrasts. 

Robespierre  was  quite  serious  in  his  festival  and  restora- 
tion  of  the  Supreme  Being  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
He  could  not  bear  the  irreligious  banter  of  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  government.  He  revolted  at  two  things  in  them, 
their  materialism,  and  -having  thought  themselves  capable, 
during  forty  days,  of  doing  without  himself. 

When,  at  the  outset,  Robespierre  was  a  butt  to  the  terri- 
ble  assaults  of  Vergniaud  and  of  Louvet,  he  bowed  the 
head  and  let  pass  the  storm.  But  as  soon  as  he  saw  that 
the  decimated  Convention  was  yielding,  he  assumed  the  tone 
of  master.  He  insisted  that  the  Convention  discuss  or  rather 
decree  on  the  spot,  laws  the  most  critical  and  ferocious,  pro- 


53  T  H  E      C  O  N  V  E  N  T  I  O  N  . 

posed  at  the  very  instant  by  the  Committee  of  public  safety. 
The  tyrannized  majority  turned  pale  with  anger,  and  ven- 
geance brooded  in  every  breast.  Merlin  and  Tallien  were 
confounded  :  Bourdon,  swallowing  the  insult,  muttered  with 
trembling  lips  :  "  I  esteem  Couthon,  I  esteem  the  Committee 
of  public  safety,  I  esteem  the  unswerving  Mountain  that  has 
saved  Liberty." — This  Mountain,  sapped  in  its  foundations, 
was  speeedily  to  sinK  upon  itself. 

What  an  oratorical  drama,  what  a  discourse  in  action, 
was  that  famous  sitting  of  9th  Thermidor ! — Robespierre 
hurls  his  terrible  impeachment  against  his  enemies,  and 
descends  from  the  tribune.  All  is  silence,  all  is  hesitation; 
then  a  lengthening  murmur  runs  from  bench  to  bench. 
The  members  accost  each  other,  and  groups  are  formed. 
They  look  scrutinizingly  at  each  other — they  count  their 
numbers — they  consult — they  kindle  into  indignation — they 
break  into  passion.  Robespierre  is  convulsed — he  is  ruined. 
Saint- Just  flies  to  his  aid,  and  denounces  Tallien.  That 
name  is  scarce  passed  his  lips,  than  Tallien  pale,  dismayed, 
half  alive,  half  dead,  demands  that  the  veil  which  covers 
Robespierre  be  entirely  torn  away. 

Billaud-Varennes  exclaims  :  "  The  Convention  is  between 
two  abysses ;  it  will  perish  if  it  falters — "  [No  f  No  ! 
it  must  not  perish  ! — All  the  members  are  standing ;  they 
wave  hats,  and  vow  to  save  the  republic] 

Billaud-Varennes :  "  Is  there  here  a  single  citizen  who 
would  consent  to  live  under  a  tyrant  ?"  [No  !  No  !  perish 
the  tyrants  /] 

Robespierre  rushed  to  the  tribune.  [A  great  number  of 
voices:  Down  with  the  tyrant !  down  J  down  !^ 

Then  Tallien  :  "  I  have  witnessed  yesterday  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Jacobins,  I  have  trembled  for  the  country  !  I  have 
•seen  in  training  the  army  of  the  new  Cromwell,  and  I  have 
aiTned  myself  with  a  dagger  to  pierce  him  to  the  heart !" 
[Vehement  acclamations.^ 

Robespierre,  his  back  against  the  railing  of  the  tribune, 
repeats  his  demand  to  be  heard,  he  begins  to  speak.     [His 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  59 

voice  is  lost  amid  reiterated  cries  of,  Down  with  the  tyrant ! 
down  !  down  with  him  /] 

i;.  Robespierre  persists :  Tallien  pushes  him  back  and  pro- 
ceeds with  his  accusation. — Then  Robespierre  casts  an  in- 
terrofjatinf?  look  towards  the  most  ardent  of  the  Mountainists  : 
some  turn  aside  the  head,  the  others  remain  motionless. 
He  invokes  the  Centre :  "  It  is  to  you,  men  of  purity  and 
patriotism,  that  I  address  myself,  and  not  to  those  brigands — " 
[Violent  interruptions . 'I  "For  the  last  time,  president  of 
assassins,  I  demand  the  floor."  \^No !  No! — The  up- 
roar continues ;  Robespierre  is  exhausted  from  his  efforts ; 
his  voice  is  become  hoarse.] 

Gamier :  "  The  blood  of  Danton  stifles  thee  !" 
This  Danton,  whose  blood  mounted  into  the  throat  of 
Robespierre  and  was  suffocating  him,  this  Danton  whom  I 
am  now  about  to  portray,  this  Danton,  the  inferior  of  Mira- 
beau  and  of  him  alone,  was  taller  by  the  head  than  all  the 
other  members  of  the  Convention. — He  had,  like  Mirabeau, 
viewed  near,  a  sallow  complexion,  sunken  features,  a 
wrinkled  forehead,  a  repulsive  ugliness  in  the  details  of  the 
countenance.  But,  like  Mirabeau,  seen  at  a  distance,  and 
in  an  assembly,  he  could  not  fail  to  draw  attention  and  in- 
terest by  his  striking  physiognomy  and  by  that  manly  beauty 
which  is  the  beauty  of  the  orator. — The  one  had  something 
of  the  lion  and  the  other  of  the  bull-dog — both  emblematic 
of  strength. 

Born  for  the  highest  eloquence,  Danton  might,  in  antiquity, 
with  his  thundering  voice,  his  impetuous  gestures,  and  the 
colossal  imagery  of  his  discourses,  have  swayed  from  the 
height  of  the  popular  tribune  the  tempestuous  waves  of  the 
multitude. — An  orator  from  the  ranks  of  the  people,  Dan- 
ton had  their  passions,  understood  their  character,  and 
spoke  their  language.  He  was  enthusiastic,  but  sincere— 
without  malice,  but  without  virtue — suspected  of  rapacity, 
though  he  died  poor — coarse  in  his  manners  and  his  conver- 
sation — sanguinary  from  system  rather  than  temperament,  he 
cut  off*  heads,  but  without  hatred,  like  the  executioner,  and 


60  THE      CONVENTION. 

his  Machiavelian  hands  trickled  with  the  carnage  of  Sep- 
tember. Abominable  as  well  as  false  policy  !  he  excused 
the  cruelty  of  the  means  by  the  greatness  of  the  end. 

Two  men  have  by  turns  ruled  the  Revolution — both  at 
the  same  time  similar  and  different — Danton  and  Robes- 
pierre.— Both  party  chiefs  and  masters  of  the  Convention — 
both  pushing  on  to  the  extremest  measures — both  intelligent  in 
the  state  of  affairs  at  home  and  abroad — both  men  of  counsel 
and  of  combat — both  accused  of  treason,  of  tyranny,  and  of 
dictatorship — both  refused  a  hearing  in  their  personal  de- 
fence, for  having  refused  to  hear  others — both  decreed  to 
prosecution  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  their  own  accomplices 
— both  found  guilty  by  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal  they  had 
themselves  erected — both  outlawed — both  immolated,  almost 
in  the  bloom  of  life,  Danton  by  Robespierre,  and  Robespierre 
on  account  of  Danton — both,  in  fine,  dragged  to  the  same 
punishment  in  the  same  cart  and  upon  the  same  scaffold. 

Danton  v/as  intemperate,  abandoned  in  his  pleasures,  and 
greedy  of  money,  less  to  hoard  than  to  spend  it ;  Robespierre, 
sombre,  austere,  economical,  incorruptible. — Daiiton,  indo- 
lent by  nature  and  by  habit :  Robespierre,  diligent  in  labor, 
even  to  the  sacrifice  of  sleep. — Danton  disdained  Robes- 
pierre, and  Robespierre  contemned  Danton. — Danton  was 
careless  to  a  degree  of  inconsistency  ;  Robespierre,  bilious, 
concentrated,  distrustful,  even  to  proscription. — Danton, 
boastful  of  his  real  vices,  and  of  the  evil  which  he  did,  and 
a  pretender  even  to  crimes  which  he  had  never  committed  : 
Robespierre,  varnishing  his  animosity  and  vengeance  with 
the  color  of  the  public  weal. 

Robespierre,  a  spiritualist ;  Danton,  a  materialist,  little 
concerned  to  kno\V  what,  after  death,  should  become  of  his 
soul,  provided  his  name  was  inscribed,  as  he  expressed  it, 
"  in  the  Pantheon  of  history." 

Danton  displayed,  in  his  furrowed  forehead  and  in  his 
burning  eyes,  the  vehemence  and  the  tumultuous  passions 
of  his  soul  ;  Robespierre  dissembled  his  wrath  under  the  im- 
perturbability of  his  features. — Danton  awed  you  by  his  alh- 


D  A  N  T  0  N  .  61 

letic  stature  aiTd  the  broken  peals  of  his  thundering  voice ; 
Robespierre  froze  the  accused  by  his  speech,  and  terrified 
them  by  his  oblique  glance. — Danton,  like  a  tiger,  sprung 
upon  his  prey  :  Robespierre,  like  a  serpent,  coiled  himself 
around  it. — Danton  retired,  after  the  battle,  to  his  tent,  and 
went  to  sleep  ;  Robespierre  never  thought  he  had  demolished 
enemies  enough  as  long  as  there  remained  any ,  still  to 
be  demolished. — Danton  forgot  himself  in  the  dangers  of 
his  country,  and  compromised  himself  for  his  friends  ;  Robes- 
pierre, in  serving  the  cause  of  liberty,  was  never  unmindful 
of  himself.  He  used  to  trumpet  his  own  praise,  and  was 
fond  of  gazing  at  himself  in  the  mirror  of  his  pride. — 
Robespierre  had  more  talent ;  Danton,  more  genius. 

Danton  gave  himself  up  to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment, 
kindled  as  he  went  by  his  voice  and  gesture,  and  scattered 
hyperbole*  by  handfuls  through  his  speeches  ;  Robespierre, 
impassive,  collected,  advanced  cautiousfy  in  the  debate,  and 
calculated  every  step  of  his  elaborate  movements. 

Danton  proceeded  by  bounds  and  gambols,  going  direct  to 
the  subject,  fiery  and  petulant  in  his  exordiums,  presumptu- 
ous to  excess,  accustomed  to  the  triumphs  of  popular  har- 
anguing, and  too  confident  of  that  success,  without  adverting 
to  the  accidents  of  popularity  and  absence. — Robespierre 
spun  out  artfully  the  web  of  toils  wherein  his  enemies  were 
to  be  ensnared,  held  his  threat  suspended  over  several  at 
the  same  time,  and  let  it  fall,  like  the  thunderbolt,  but  at  the 
close  of  his  discourse. - 

-  Danton  ended  with  some  rhetorical  flourishes,  but  without 
coming  to  any  conclusion.  Robespierre,  less  brilliant,  but 
more  precise,  less  impetuous,  but  more  adroit,  did  not  vainly 
beat  the  air,  did  not  talk  for  the  sake  of  talking,  never  lost 
sight  of  his  object,  and  closed  but  by  a  decree  of  accusation 
drawn  up  in  due  form,  and  submitted  for  the  immediate  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Convention. 

Danton  imagined  that  he  had  but  to  present  himself  to 
commence  the  combat,  and  but  to  combat  single-handed  to 
secure  a  triumph  ;  Robespierre  sought  in  the  effervescence 

6    .  ' 


62  THE     CONVENTION. 

of  the  Jacobins  and  in  the  armed  force  of  the  Commune,  a 
bucrbear  atrainst  the  Committees  and  the  Convention  itself. 
— There  was  in  the  case  of  Danton  less  of  treachery  than 
of  remissness,  less  of  forgetful ness  of  the  Revolution  than 
of  himself,  and  in  that  of  Robespierre  more  wounded  vanity 
than  aspiration  to  the  dictatorship,  more  of  rancorous  spleen 
than  of  premeditated  tyranny. — Danton  perished  through 
excessive  confidence  in  himself;  Robespierre,  through  ex- 
cessive suspicion  of  his  accomplices. — Danton  passed  like  a 
meteor  over  the  horizon  of  the  Convention;  Robespierre 
held  the  Assembly,  the  Committees,  and  the  Clubs  in  depend- 
ence upon  him,  and  governed  without  being  minister, 
reigned  without  being  king,  and  gave  his  terrible  name 
to  the  epoch. 

Parliamentary  eloquence,  in  our  monopoly  Chambers  and 
complicated  governments,  is,  generally,  but  mere  sound, 
empty  phrases  and  nothing  beside.  But  in  those  days  a 
popular  dictator,  a  tribune,  a  Danton,  by  the  power,  the 
energy,  and  the  action  of  his  oratory  could  put  in  motion  an 
army  of  six  hundred  thousand  men,  repel  a  foreign  invasion 
beyond  the  frontiers,  demolish  whole  categories  of  outlawed 
persons,  stir  up  provinces  to  the  inmost  recesses,  and  create, 
as  by  magic,  armies,  tribunals,  laws,  and  constitutions. — 
Eloquence  legislated,  governed,  triumphed  in  the  Conven- 
tion, in  the  Clubs,  in  the  public  squares.  In  the  present 
day,  the  place  of  deputy  is  made  a  ladder  to  the  ministry. 
At  that  time,  we  see  Danton  quit  the  ministry  to  remain  re- 
presentative of  the  people.  The  reason  is,  that  a  representa- 
tive of  the  people  was  superior  to  a  minister,  was  in  fact 
every  thing. 

Danton  shut  himself  up  in  the  Convention,  as  in  a  fortress 
bristling  with  cannon,  of  which  one  half  was  turned  against 
its  defenders,  and  the  other  against  the  enemy.  There,  he 
fired  through  every  breach,  and  none  disputed  his  exercise 
of  the  chief  command.  But  when  the  Convention  was  split 
into  two  rival  camps,  Danton  hesitated.  Had  he  sided  with 
the  Gironde,  he  would  have  crushed  Robespierre.     But  im- 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  63 

prudently  repulsed  and  pressed  by  the  Girondists  against 
the  foot  of  the  Mountain,  he  ascended  it  and  surrendered 
himself  desperately  to  his  destiny.  "  Ah  !  you  accuse  me," 
said  he,  to  Gaudet,  drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height, 
"  you  accuse  me  !  you  do  not  know  my  power  !" — It  was 
great,  that  power  !  for  he  held  in  his  hand,  to  move  the 
Convention,  t\uo  of  the  mightiest  levers — terror  and  enthu- 
siasm.— It  was  great,  that  power  of  terror,  when  he  elevated 
upon  its  gigantic  pillars  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. — 
It  was  great,  that  power  of  enthusiasm,  when,  kindling 
with  his  breath  the  invincible  martial  ardor  of  the  French, 
which  is  apt  to  flag  if  not  kept  up  unceasingly,  he  said  : 
*'  What  we  need,  in  order  to  conquer,  is  audacity,  again 
audacity,  always  audacity  !" — And  elsewhere  :  "  The  peo- 
pie  have  nothing  to  give  but  blood ;  they  give  it  pro- 
fusely. Come  then,  mercenary  wretches,  give  you  as  freely 
of  your  wealth.  What !  you  have  a  whole  nation  for  lever, 
reason  for  a  fulcrum,  and  you  have  not  yet  overturned  the 
world !  Throw  aside  your  miserable  quarrels,  I  know  but 
the  enemy.  Let  us  crush  the  enemy.  What,  though  they 
call  me  blood-thirsty  ?  What  care  I  for  my  reputation  ? 
Let  France  be  free,  and  let  my  name  be  given  to  infamy  !" 
— This  was  a  monstrous,  but  original,  energetic,  startling 
eloquence,  which  welled  forth  by  gushes  from  the  breast  of 
the  orator  who  enraptured  the  Assembly  and  wrung  from  it 
prolonged  peals  of  unanimous  acclamation. 

Here  are  a  few  more  of  the  figures  of  this  style  of  elo- 
quence : 

"  A  nation  in  a  state  of  revolution  is  like  the  brass  which 
simmers  and  sublimates  itself  in  the  crucible.  The  statue 
of  liberty  is  not  yet  cast,  but  the  metal  is  boiling!" 

And  this :  "  Marseilles  has  declared  itself  the  Mountain 
of  the  republic.  That  Mountain  will  expand  its  proportions ; 
it  will  roll  down  the  loosened  rocks  of  liberty,  and  crush  be- 
neath them  the  enemies  of  freedom." — And  this  apothegm 
so  just:  "  When  a  people  passes  from  a  monarchical  to  9 
republican  form  of  government,  it  is  carried  beyond  the  end 


64  THE      CONVENTION. 

by  the  projectile  force  which  it  has  given  itself." — And 
this  lofty  menace  :  "  It  is  by  cannon-balls  that  the  Conven- 
tion must  be  made  known  to  our  enemies." 

Danton  too  used  to  pay  tribute  to  the  bad  taste  of  the 
times.  For  instance,  one  of  his  celebrated  speeches  closes 
thus  :  "  I  have  intrenched  myself  in  the  citadel  of  reason  ; 
I  will  open  my  way  out  with  the  cannon  of  truth,  and  I  will 
pulverize  my  accusers." 

Inexhaustible  subject  for  historical  meditation  !  Oh  !  on 
the  one  hand,  what  an  immense  and  glorious  career  had  not 
Liberty  opened  to  us,  if  so  many  confiscations,  so  many  pro- 
scriptions, so  many  incarcerations,  so  many  massacres  and 
torLurings,  so  many  torrents  of  blood,  so  many  decapitations, 
so  many  executioners  and  Tictims,  had  not  led  us  back 
forcibly  by  the  road  of  anarchy  to  despotism !  Oh  !  on  the 
other  hand,  what  perils  of  death,  when  the  Convention  itself 
appeared  to  hesitate,  had  not  our  beloved  France  incurred, 
our  France,  one  and  indivisible,  menaced  as  she  was  with 
dismemberment  and  partition,  if,  in  that  fatal  moment  which 
saves  or  surrenders  the  life  of  empires,  Danton  had  de- 
spaired of  her  cause  ! — What  proved  his  ruin,  and  what 
must  have  ruined  Robespierre  too,  was  much  less  having 
aspired  to  govern,  than  not  having  governed  enough. 

One  must  not  get  out  of  humor  with  revolutions.  He  is 
not  to  stand  surveying  them  as  they  pass,  from  the  heights 
of  the  beach.  It  is  necessary  to  embark  with  them  in  the 
same  bottom,  traverse  the  same  tempests,  watch  the  con- 
spiracies day  and  night,  and  not  quit^  for  an  instant  the 
helm.  * 

Danton  went  to  sleep,  confiding  in  the  deceitful  breeze  of 
his  popularity.  The  rudder  slipped  from  his  hands.  He 
dropped  into  the  deep,  and  the'  gulf  closed  over  him. — 
Neither  the  favor  of  the  Cordeliers,  nor  the  celebrity  of  his 
name,  nor  the  memory  of  his  services,  nor  the  ill-sup- 
pressed mutterings  of  the  Convention,  nor  the  secret  sym- 
pathies of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal,  nor  the  dcvotedness 
of  his  friends,  nor  the  unimportance  of  the  charge,  nor  his 


D  A  N  T  O  N .  05 

love  for  liberty,  nor  his  daring,  nor  his  eloquence — nothing 
could  avail  to  save  him. — The  knife  was  raised,  and  Robes- 
pierre awaited  his  victim. 

Danton,  on  his  way  to  execution,  passed  by  the  residence 
of  Robespierre.  He  turned  about,  and  with  his  voice  of 
thunder,  "  Robespierre  !"  he  exclaimed,  "  Robespierre  !  I 
summon  thee  to  appear  within  three  months  upon  the  scaf- 
fold !"  He  ascends  the  fatal  steps — he  enibraces  for  the 
last  time  his  friend,  Camille  Desmoulins.  The  executioner 
separates  them  :  "  Wretch,"  said  he  to  him,  "  thou  canst  not 
hinder  our  heads  to  kiss  each  other  presently  in  the  basket," 


THE    EMPIRE. 


MILITARY    ORATORY. 

NAPOLEON    BONAPARTE. 

Parliamentary  eloquence  made  no  great  figure  under 
the  Directory.  Under  the  Consulate  and  the  Empire,  it  lost 
its  freedom  and  its  voice.  The  Press  itself  was  decapitated 
by  the  fatal  shears  of  the  Censorship.  To  the  agents  of 
revolution  had  succeeded  the  agents  of  organization  ;  to  the 
theoretical  politicians,  the  men  of  practical  business  ;  to  the 
orators,  the  jurists.  In  the  Legislative  Body,  the  Senate, 
the  Council  of  State,  the  Pulpit,  the  Bar,  true  eloquence  had 
become  unknown.  Eloquence — that  great  art  of  impassion- 
ating  and  swaying  the  masses  by  means  of  emotional  and 
figurative  expression — passed  to  the  military  men,  or  rather 
to  one  alone  of  them,  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

The  military  eloquence,  attributed  to  the  ancients,  is  no 
better  than  a  fiction  of  their  historians  and  their  poets.  To 
harangue  soldiers,  not  in  the  circus  and  from  the  elevation 
of  the  tribune,  but  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  as  is  re- 
ported of  their  generals,  would  have  been  admirable,  I  am 
far  from  denying  it ;   but  it  was  plainly  impossible. 

These  expressions  :  "  Come  and  take  them,"  of  Leoni- 
das  to  Xerxes ;  of  Epimenondas  dying :  '•  I  leave  two 
immortal  daughters,  Leuctra.^and  Mantinea ;"  of  Caesar: 
*' I  came,  I  saw,  I  conquered:"  these  apothegms  may  well 
have  been  spoken,  precisely  because  they  are  but  apothegms. 
But  from   a  sentence  of  some  syllables  to  a  harangue  of 


* 


Lo3(a)i,^A[p^[^Tr[E 


m 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  67 

some  pages,  there  is  a  wide  distance.     Tliere  is  all  the  dis- 
tance from  truth  to  falsehood. 

If,  in  fact,  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  in  a  hall  where 
the  repercussion  of  sounds  is  favored  by  its  acoustical  con- 
struction, there  are  a  hundred  members  at  least,  out  of  four 
hundred,  who  never  hear  very  distinctly  the  loudest  and  most 
practised  speakers,  how  could  the  generals  of  antiquity  have 
made  themselves  heard,  upon  the  ground  which  they  may 
chance  to  occupy  on  the  battle-field,  before  the  extended 
line  of  a  hundred  thousand  warriors,  amid  wind  and  rain, 
which  scatter  and  drown  his  words  at  four  paces  from  the 
orator  ?  The  greater  part  of  these  monstrous  armies  were 
but  a  horde  of  barbarians  of  all  countries,  chained  together 
under  the  rod  of  a  master,  knowing  neither  to  read  or  write, 
or  make  themselves  intelligible  to  one  another,  and  under- 
standing each  other  perfectly  but  for  the  purposes  of  theft, 
murder  and  pillage.  But  the  illusion  favors  the  predilec- 
tions for  antiquity.  We  unhesitatingly  believe  those  histo- 
rians who  make  Alexander,  Scipio,  Hannibal,  speak  as  if  Al- 
exander, Scipio,  Hannibal  were  elaborators  of  standard  phra- 
ses, and  who  in  the  thick  of  the  melee,  had  been  specially 
careful  not  to  derange  by  a  comma  the  grammatical  sym- 
metry, or  the  cadence  and  measure  of  a  gerund  or  a  su- 
innc. 

Moreover,  all  these  fictions  of  discourse  go  back  but  a 
little  way.  The  Greeks  were  fine  speakers,  and  the  heroes 
of  old  Homer  haranfjue  almost  as  well  asthev  fii^ht.  Virsril 
and  he  have  even  not  been  satisfied  with  making  speeches 
for  mortal  men.  In  their  superabundance,  they  furnish 
them  to  the  gods  of  Olympus,  in  imitation  of  them,  Tasso 
puts  subtle  and  labored  orations  in  the  mouth  of  Rinaldo,  of 
Solyman  and  of  Godfrey,  who,  in  their  quality  of  warriors, 
prided  themselves  upon  not  knowing  how  to  spell  a  solitary 
letter  of  the  Turkish  or  the  French  alphabet.  Milton  goes 
farther :  he  ascribes  speeches,  very  beautiful  assuredly,  to 
the  winged  seraphim  of  heaven  and  to  the  angels  of  the 
bottomless  pit,  to  excite  the  divine  and  the  infernal  militia 


68  TIIEEMPIRE. 

to  fight  bravely — with  the  condition,  however,  of  never  kill- 
ing each  other,  since  bodiless  souls  are  insusceptible  of 
death. 

The  lengthy  harangues  of  Quinctius  Curtius  are  but 
rhetorical  essays,  which  this  historian  puts  in  the  mouth  of 
his  Alexander,  who  is  a  mere  swaggerer.  Polybius,  Thu- 
cydidesj  Sallust,  Plutarch  clothe  the  Greek  and  Roman 
heroes  in  the  livery  of  their  own  style.  It  is  not  Germani- 
cus  we  read  in  the  "  Annals,"  it  is  Tacitus  unadulterated. 
Livy  makes  no  end  of  his  harangues,  and  this  harmonious 
phrase-maker  of  the  drawing-rooms  of  Mecasnas,  does  not 
reflect  that  he  would  not  have  been  understood  even  by  the 
generals  of  ancient  Rome.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  see  him 
introduce  the  Chamberlains  of  Tarquin  lisping  the  paioz5 
of  the  Etrurian  dialect,  amid  inextinguishable  laughter,  in 
the  polished  court  of  Augustus.  It  would  be  very  much  as 
if  Madame  de  Sevigne  would  try  to  make  herself  under- 
stood by  the  kitchen-maids  of  King  Childebert. 

The  most  elegant  of  our  men  of  letters,  M.  Villemain, 
would  not  polish,  would  not  round  or  point  his  period  with 
more  finish  in  his  carefully  closed  cabinet,  than  does  the 
rude  Coriolanus  under  the  walls  of  infant  Rome,  or  the  fero- 
cious Arminius  in  the  swamps  of  Germany. 

Galgacus,  for  example,  was  a  sort  of  savage,  bristled, 
hairy  and  bearded  from  head  to  foot.  He  emitted  from  a 
shrill  gullet  certain  inarticulate  cries,  brandishing  his  sword 
meanwhile.  He  was  not  well  versed  in  prosodial  elisions 
or  ablatives  absolute,  and  it  is  more  than  probable  that  he 
had  not  had  time  to  finish  his  philosophy  at  the  University 
of  Oxford.  Very  well !  Tacitus  makes  him  a  rhetorician, 
a  species  of  perpetual  secretary  of  the  French  Academy. 
His  whohs  speech  is  varnished  and  brushed.  Nothing  is 
wanting — exordium,  plan,  proofs,  peroration,  and  besides, 
logic,  vehemence,  color.  Add  to  which,  an  admirable 
painting  of  manners  and  the  style  of  the  great  masters.  He 
might  have  been  envied  by  Cicero. 

These  historians  had  all  spent  their  youth  sweating  mind 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTE.  69 

and  body  in  scholastic  disputation.  Their  elaborate  ha- 
rangues smell  of  the  lamp.  Moreover,  portraits  and 
speeches  were,  as  there  is  ground  to  conjecture,  very  much 
in  fashion  at  that  time,  and  to  please  the  public  of  that  day, 
the  historians  made  them  portraits  and  speeches. 

In  fine,  the  Romans  and  Greeks,  folk  of  large  imagina- 
tion, have  always  been  lovers  of  fictions  in  religion,  in 
government,  in  poetry,  in  legislation,  in  every  thing.  If 
we  are  to  judge  of  the  truth  of  the  facts  related  by  Sallust, 
Livy,  Quinctius  Curtius  and  Tacitus,  according  to  the 
genuineness  of  the  harangues  they  report  to  us,  there  is  no 
great  reliance  to  be  had  upon  all  those  histories. 

What  adds  still  to  the  improbability  of  these  speeches,  is 
their  very  extemporaneousness.  For  it  is  not  said  that  they 
were  dictated  to  a  secretary,  nor  that  he  attended  the  gen- 
eral for  the  purpose  of  collecting  them.  They  were  not 
graven  upon  tablets  overlaid  with  wax.  They  were  not 
affixed  to  the  palisades  of  the  camp.  They  were  not  read 
during  the  watches  by  the  fire-light  of  the  bivouac.  They 
were  not  committed  to  memory  to  be  recited  to  others. 

At  the  present  day,  the  military  harangues  are  not  ex- 
temporized. They  would  not  be  heard  amidst  the  clatter- 
ing of  muskets  and  bayonets,  the  prancing  and  neighing  of 
horses,  the  coughings,  sneezings,  talkings,  whisperings  and 
caperings  of  men.  The  general  would  find  it  impossible 
to  bring  together  upon  a  point  sufficiently  concentrated,  the 
infantry,  the  cavalry,  and  the  staff-officers,  and  the  artillery, 
and  the  attendants,  and  the  requisite  genius.  In  like  man- 
ner, he  could  not  conveniently  have  himself  lifted  on  men's 
shoulders,  upon  a  shield  or  in  a  tribune.  That  would 
savor  of  preparation,  that  would  be  ridiculous.  The  gen- 
eral speaks,  therefore,  less  to  the  ear  of  the  soldier  than  to 
his  mind.  He  encourages  him  before  the  engagement,  he 
congratulates  him  after  the  victory.  The  harangues  are 
inserted  in  the  order  of  the  day,  and  this  is  posted  and  read, 
on  the  walls,  trees,  or  camp-stakes — is  repeated,  is  conned 


70  THEEMPIRE. 

at  the  bivouacs,  on  the  watch,   and  may  be  multiplied  at 
will  by  impression. 

There  is  possibility,  truth,  a  result  in  the  modern  military 
orations.  But  it  is  beyond  comprehension,  I  repeat,  what 
was  meant  by  improvisation  in  the  armies  of  antiquity,  and 
what  could  have  been  the  effect,  the  import  of  those  words 
scattered  to  the  wind,  and  which  must  have  dropped,  un- 
heard, at  the  very  feet  of  the  speaker.  Every  address  of 
any  length  ascribed  to  the  ancient  generals,  is  therefore  a 
mere  historical  ornament,  a  fiction,  an  invention,  a  lie. 

Caesar  alone  escapes  this  criticism,  because  Csesar  was 
not  only  an  orator,  but  also  one  of  the  most  polished  of  the 
aristocracy  of  Rome,  in  the  golden  days  of  her  literature. 
Csesar  was  possessed  of  every  talent  and  every  accomplish- 
ment :  at  once  elegant  and  athletic,  tender-hearted  and 
courageous,  prudent  and  peremptory,  vehement  and  sly, 
vast  in  his  plans,  bold  in  execution,  proud  of  his  patrician 
birth  and  familiar  with  his  soldiers,  by  whom  he  was  adored. 
At  the  same  time  a  great  general,  a  great  orator,  a  great 
writer  ;  he  describes  in  his  Commentaries,  written  by  himself, 
his  battles  and  his  speeches.  But  as  Caesar,  in  common 
with  all  great  minds,  was  sensible  to  the  vanity  of  literary 
glory,  it  is  not  very  certain — at  least  I  should  not  be  sure — 
that  he  did  not  recast,  amplify,  color,  embellish,  and  per- 
haps— were  it  but  for  amusement — prepare  in  the  leisure 
of  his  tent  several  of  those  harangues,  pretended  to  be  ex- 
temporaneous. After  the  victory,  he  bethought  him  of 
posterity. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  I,  for  my  part,  make  no  difficulty  of 
admitting  Csesar  to  have  been  the  first  military  orator  of 
antiquity.  Indeed  the  opinion  will  not  ever  be  disputed. 
Eloquence  so  well  becomes  the  conquerors  and  the  masters 
of  the  world  !• 

In  modern  times.  Saint  Louis,  Philip  Augustus,  Fran- 
cis 1st,  Bayard,  Duguesclin  have  spoken  some  apothegms 
of  military  bravery.  The  addresses  of  Henry  IV.  especially 
are  brief,  taking,  full  of  soul,  sparkling  with  wit.     But  all 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTE.  71 

these  kings,  all  these  captains  were  placed  but  amid  a 
small  circle  of  nobles.  It  was  to  nobles  that  Francis  1st 
left  for  his  adieu  this  celebrated  apothegm  :  "  All  is  lost, 
gentlemen,  except  honor."  This  very  word,  honor,  is  a  term 
of  chivalry.  It  is  to  one  of  his  knights  that  Louis  XII,  at 
Aignadel,  replied  :  "  Let  those  who  are  afraid  take  shelter^ 
behind  me  !"  It  was  to  a  knight,  to  Crillon,  that  Henry  IV. 
wrote :  "  Hang  thyself,  brave  Crillon  ;  we  have  fought  at 
Arques  and  thou  wast  not  there."  It  was  to  nobles,  to  the 
princes  of  Conde  and  of  Nemours,  that  he  cried:  "For 
God  !  gentlemen,  onward  !  I  will  let  you  see  that  I  am 
your  senior  brother."  And  these  noble  words  which  he 
spoke  while  running  forward :  "  Follow  my  plume,  you 
will  always  find  it  on  the  road  to  victory."  But  is  there 
not  something  of  feudalism  in  such  sentiments  and  sayings  ? 
Would  you  not  think  these  chivalric  sceptre-wearers  more 
proud  of  being  gentlemen  than  of  being  kings  ?  It  was  the 
manners  and  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  it  is  but  just  to 
say  such  princes  were  preferable  to  institutions. 

There  was,  under  the  ancient  kings  of  France,  a  body 
of  brave  and  well-disciplined  troops.  There  was  as  yet  no 
national  army.  The  grand  military  eloquence  had  its 
birth  with  liberty  in  the  wars  of  the  Revolution.  But  many 
of  the  heroes  who  led  our  armies  had  more  courage  than 
literature.  They  knew  better  how  to  conquer  than  to  talk. 
It  was  not  speaking  even  then,  it  was  singing.  The  Mar- 
seillaise gained  more  battles  than  the  finest  orations.  There 
was  no  need  of  warlike  exhortations  to  rush,  bayonet  in  hand, 
upon  the  Austrian  columns.  Every  citizen  was  a  soldier, 
and  every  soldier  in  repulsing'  the  enemy,  had  the  heart 
of  a  commander.  The  orders  of  the  day  of  the  Convention 
were  frequently  more  eloquent  than  the  allocutions  of  the 
generals.  They  ended,  amid  the  unanimous  acclamations 
of  the  Assembly,  with  these  simple  words  :  "  The  army  of 
the  Pyrenees,  the  army  of  the  Rhine,  the  army  of  the  Sam- 
bre-et-Meuse,  the  army  of  the  West,  the  army  of  Italy  have 
merited  well  of  the  country." 


72  ~  T  H  E      E  M  P  I  R  E . 

The  manly  and  stern  accents  of  the  republican  elo- 
quence expired  under  the  Empire.  It  seemed  as  if  all 
moral  energy  had  ceased  to  exist  save  in  the  head  of  one 
man,  that  of  Napoleon — and  that,  in  most  of  his  lieutenants, 
it  had  taken  refuge  at  the  extremity  of  their  arms.  No 
more  impulse,  no  more  origination ;  they  obeyed,  this  was 
the  whole.  One  of  them  used  to  say  :  "  In  the  name  of 
my  august  sovereign,  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  the 
French,  king  of  Italy  and  protector  of  the  confederation 
of  the  Rhine,  I  have  to  prescribe  to  you,  officers  and  sol- 
diers, that  each  of  you  do  his  duty.  Another  general,  more 
servile  still,  used  to  write  :  "  By  virtue  of  the  orders  of  His 
Excellency,  the  marshal  of  the  Empire,  commandant  of  the 
fourth  regiment,  you  Avill  have,  soldiers,  to  run  to  victory." 

What  is  to  be  said  of  the  military  eloquence  of  the  Rus- 
sians, the  Germans,  and  the  English  ? 

Of  Suwarrow  we  have  a  grand  and  beautiful  piece  of 
pantomime,  when,  to  arrest  the  retreat  of  the  Russians,  he  had 
his  grenadiers  dig  a  trench,  wherein,  lying  down  with  his  de- 
corations, sword,  epaulettes,  all,  he  ordered  that  he  should 
be  buried  alive.  For  the  rest,  the  Russian  generals  treat 
their  soldiers  as  abject  serfs.  They  recommend  them  to 
think,  in  the  battle,  of  their  feudal  masters,  and  adore  the 
image  of  the  great  Saint  Nicholas,  in  like  manner  as  the 
sword  of  the  archangel  St.  Michael.  Their  proclamations 
are  pointless,  verbose,  and  fanatical. 

The  world  has  never  heard  much  of  the  eloquence  of 
Austrian  archdukes  and  Swiss  princes. 

The  English  generals  are  temperate  of  words.  Their 
bulletins  of  war  are  almost  all  simple,  brief,  and  dignified. 
They  are  neither  laudatory  nor  passionate.  They  say  the 
truth,  and  go  strait  to  the  fact.  Their  soldiers  are  cool,  in- 
telligent, well-disciplined,  brave,  less  sensible  to  glory  than 
to  duty,  and  to  well-turned  compliments  than  to  material 
well-being.  Their  imagination  is  not  to  be  transported  by 
figures  of  rhetoric  ;  their  heart,  not  to  be  moved  by  accents 
of  sensibility.     But  no  more  would  they  bear  without  mur- 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  73 

muring  to  be  told  :  "  You  have  neither  shoes,  nor  overcoats, 
nor  wine,  nor  beer,  nor  meat,  nor  bread ;  meanwhile,  my 
friends,  you  may  fly  to  victory  !"  The  aristocratic  Parlia- 
ment of  Great  Britain  votes  her  generals  and  officers,  under 
guise  of  public  testimonials  and  swords  of  honor,  some  mag- 
nificent pensions.  They  are  a  people  with  whom,  not  ex- 
cepting glory  itself,  every  thing  ends  in  money. 

The  English  bulletin  is  rather  dry,  I  admit,  but  I  should 
prefer  it  a  thousand  times, — such  is  my  taste, — to  the  Span- 
ish bulletin,  which  is  still  more  inflated  than  our  own  African 
bulletin,  and  calls  the  slightest  skirmish  a  battle,  and  the 
pettiest  skirmisher  a  hero.  It  is  only  in  that  kingdom  that 
one  sees  Marquises  of  Fidelity,  Princes  of  Peace,  Dukes  of 
Victory,  two  dukes  at  once  of  the  latter  title  in  the  two  ad- 
verse camps,  so  that  there  could  never  be  defeat  on  either  side, 
since  both  must  be  victorious.  It  is  the  Immortal  Riego, 
the  Immortal  Zumalacarrequi,  the  Immortal  Cabrera,  the 
Immortal  Espartero,  the  Immortal  Don  Quixote  !  Heroism^ 
mummeries,  laurels,  diamond-headed  decorations,  illumi- 
nated portraits  and  snufl"-boxes,  triumphal  entries,  bombastic 
harangues ;  all  this  happily  leads  to  nothing,  and  we  are 
told  the  army,  the  municipalities,  and  the  Cortes  must  be 
allowed  to  give  rein  to  their  imagination,  and  that  we  must 
be  indulgent  to  this  country,  because  the  climate  is  hot. 

But  let  us,  for  the  rest,  dismiss  all  those  haranguers,  and 
^  proceed  to  Napoleon,  who  has  been  the  first  military  orator 
of  modern  times,  as  he  has  been  tlie  first  chief. 

When  Providence  puts  its  hand  into  the  crowd,  there  to 
choose  and  thence  to  draw  those  extraordinary  men  whom 
it  lias  predestined  to  represent  their  generation  upon  the 
earlh  and  to  change  the  face  of  empires,  it  imparls  and  as- 
signs them  the  intellectual  and  the  physical  powers  of  so- 
ciety, and  it  brings  them,  at  remote  intervals,  upon  the 
stage  of  the  world,  but  in  circumstances  which  it  seems  to 
have  prepared  expressly  for  their  elevation  and  for  their  fall. 
Such  were  Alexander,  Ccesar,  and  Napoleon. 

Greece  was  out  of  all   patience   with   rhetoricians   and 


7 


71  THE     E  :\i  ?  1 11  n . 

poets,  with  usurpation,  with  civil  wars,  and  great  men, 
when  the  Asiatic  world  was  opened,  with  all  its  riches,  its 
ridiculous  and  despised  religions,  its  enervated  satraps,  its 
populations  rotten  before  being  ripe,  its  superannuated  gov- 
ernments, and  its  boundless  territory,  to  the  ambition  of  the 
young  Alexander. 

The  Roman  universe,  harassed  by  the  disgust  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people  for  a  stormy  liberty,  and  by  the 
want  of  unity  after  the  conquests  of  Asia,  Spain,  Gaul  and 
England,  was  awaiting  but  a  master,  and  gave  itself  still 
more  to  Csesar  than  Csesar  desired  it.  The  lemons  of 
veterans,  accustomed  to  conquest  under  his  command,  knew 
no  longer  but  the  fasces  and  the  name  of  Csesar.  Rome 
also  aspired  but  to  assign  him  the  sceptre  of  the  worlds 
which  her  feeble  hands  could  no  lons^er  bear. 

Napoleon,  in  his  turn,  adroitly  possessed  himself  of  the 
active  forces  of  the  Revolution,  which,  tired  of  boiling  up 
from  the  bottom  of  the  crater  and  sinking  back  upon  them-. 
selves,  sought  an  outlet  whereby  to  diffuse  themselves  abroad, 
and  overflowed  in  the  direction  of  conquest.  He  was  mas- 
ter, because  he  had  the  wish,  because  he  had  the  ability^ 
and  because  he  had  the  skill  to  be  one.  He  absorbed,  in 
the  unity  of  his  dominion,  all  conscience,  intelligence,  and 
liberty.  He  had  boldness  because  he  had  genius,  and  per- 
haps he  had  genius  because  he  had  audacity.  He  despised 
men,  because  he  understood  them.  He  loved  glory,  because 
all  beside  was  insufficient  to  fill  the  immense  void  of  his 
soul.  He  devoured  time,  he  devoured  space ;  he  must 
needs  live  quicker,  progress  quicker  than  other  men  ;  he 
weii^hed  the  World  in  his  hand  and  deemed  it  Msht.  He 
dreamt  the  eternity  of  his  dynasty  and  universal  monarchy. 

But  after  having  thus  exalted  the  conquerors.  Providence 
puts  out  with  a  breath  the  splendor  of  their  diadem,  and  pre- 
sents them  a  spectacle  to  the  universe,  to  teach  it  that,  despite 
tlieir  glory  and  the  sublimity  of  their  sway,  they  are  but 
men,  and  that,  like  all  men,  they  are  subject  to  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  life  and  limited  by  the  nothingness  of  the  grave. 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  75 

Thus  Alexander  perished  in  the  bloom  of  his  age,  satiated 
with  triumphs  and  debaucheries,  amid  the  intoxication  of  a 
royal  festival.  Coesar  fell  at  the  base  of  Pompey's  statue, 
smitten  by  a  republican  dagger,  when  he  was  about  to  get 
himself  crowned  by  the  Senate,  perpetual  Emperor  of  Rome, 
after  having  brought  under  her  laws  the  entire  globe.  In 
fine.  Napoleon  paused  not  in  the  career  of  his  ambition  until 
he  had  been  driven  upon  a  solitary  rock,  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  the  billows  of  the  ocean. 

Napoleon  was  one  of  those  prodigious  men  who  feel  them- 
selves born  and  who  are  formed  for  the  government  and  subju- 
gation of  nations.  Men  of  this  description  must  die  or  reign. 
They  are  raised  scarce  a  step  above  the  rank  of  common 
soldiers,  when  they  give  their  com:nands  as  if  they  v/ere 
generals.  Though  still  no  more  than  subjects,  they  talk 
with  the  authoritative  tone  of  masters. 

Napoleon  was  not  born,  like  Alexander,  on  the  steps  of  a 
throne,  nor  like  Caesar,  in  the  folds  of  the  Senatorial  purple. 
But  as  soon  as  he  put  a  sword  in  his  hand,  he  commanded, 
and  when  he  commanded,  he  reigned.  A  simple  captain, 
he  besieged  and  took  Toulon.  A«  general  of  brigade,  he 
organized  the  defence  of  the  13th  Vendemiaire  and  saved 
the  Convention.  A  generalissimo  of  the  army  of  Italy,  he 
treated  like  a  king  with  the  kings,  the  potentates,  and  the 
Pope.  Vanquisher  of  Egypt,  he  conducts  this  expedition 
with  the  authority  of  an  absolute  chief;  returns  from  Africa 
without  letters  of  recall,  lands  at  Frejus,  traverses  France 
in  triumph,  makes  the  Directory  quake,  draws  in  his  train 
the  other  generals,  expels  the  two  Councils,  improvisates  a 
new  constitution,  and  takes  into  his  own  hands  the  reins  of 
the  government.  Emperor,  he  holds  under  his  feet,  in  mute 
obedience,  the  Senate,  the  Legislative  body,  the  adminis- 
tration, the  people  and  the  army.  So  that  it  may  be  said 
Napoleon  never  served,  and  that  he  could  never  have 
brought  himself  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  a  parliament 
or  a  king,  any  more  than  Alexander  could  have  obeyed  the 


76 


THE     EMPIRE. 


confederation  of  the  Greeks,  or  Ca3sar  the  orders  of  the  Ro- 
man Senate. 

To  wish  tliat  Alexander,  Csesar,  and  Napoleon  had  not 
been  masters,  in  what  place  or  time  soever  they  might  have 
lived,  were  to  forget,  were  to  misapprehend  their  nature, 
their  genius  and  destiny.  The  son  of  the  Macedonian,  the 
pupil  of  Aristotle,  led  captive  by  his  eloquence  as  well  as 
his  triumphs,  the  imaginations  of  the  Greeks  and  of  the  Bar- 
barians. Csesar  swayed  the  Roman  legions  by  the  ascend- 
ant of  his  eloquence.  Napoleon  won  all  at  once  over  the 
old  generals  of  the  republic,  over  his  army  and  the  nation, 
the  resistless  empire  of  victory  and  genius. 

We  find  in  the  proclamations,  bulletins,  and  orders  of  the 
day  of  Napoleon,  the  qualities  of  the  soldier,  the  art  of  the  or- 
ator, and  the  profound  and  subtle  sense  of  the  politician.  It 
is  not  only  the  language  of  a  general,  nor  of  a  king,  nor  of 
a  statesman,  it  is  all  these  at  the  same  time.  If  Napoleon 
was  a  consummate  orator,  it  is  that  he  was  a  complete  man. 
What  splendor  has  not  genius  united  with  power !  What 
authority  must  not  the  language  of  this  ravager  of  nations, 
this  founder  of  states,  have  derived  from  the  majesty  of  su- 
preme command,  the  eminence  and  perpetuity  of  the  gen- 
eralship, the  immense  number  of  his  troops,  their  fidelity  and 
attachment,  the  multiplied  splendor  of  his  victories,  the  nov- 
elty, the  suddenness,  the  hardihood,  and  the  extraordinary 
grandeur  of  his  enterprises.  Napoleon  combined  all  the 
conditions  of  personal  boldness,  of  sovereign  power,  and  of 
political  and  military  talents  in  the  highest  degree  of  any 
commander  of  modern  times,  and  it  is  in  this  that  he  is  with 
them,  in  all  respects,  incomparable.  / 

For  the  rest,  let  us  not  confound  the  military  apothegms 
with  the  harangues  of  which  we  shall  speak  afterwards. 

Sublime  apothegms  abound  in  the  warlike  annals  of  all 
countries  and  all  times.  "  Return  alive  with  thy  shield,  or 
dead  upon  it,"  said  a  Spartan  mother  to  her  son.  "  Our 
forests  of  arrows  will  darken  the  sun-light."  "  So  much  the 
better,"  replied  Leonidas  to  Xerxes,  "  we  shall  fight  in  the 


i 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTE.  77 

shade."  Cccsar  stumbles  in  setting  foot  on  the  coast  of 
Africa.  Instantly,  to  avert  the  evil  presage,  he  cries : 
"  Africa,  I  embrace  thee  !"  Henry  IV.,  at  Coutras,  slipping 
out  from  amidst  his  guard  :  "  Stand  aloof,  gentlemen,  I  pray 
you,  do  not  hide  me,  I  desire  to  be  seen."  Villars,  expiring, 
laments:  "  This  Berwick  has  just  been  cut  in  tv/ain  with  a 
ball !  and  I  die  in  my  bed !  I  always  said  Berwick  v/ould 
have  the  better  fortune !"  Larochejaquelin,  the  Vendean 
general,  rushes  into  the  thickest  of  the  battle,  saying  :  "  I 
wish  to  be  but  a  hussar  for  the  pleasure  of  sharing  the  fight." 
And  this  remark  of  Kleber  to  Bonaparte  :  "  General,  you 
are  great  like  the  world  !"  And  those  beautiful  words  of 
Desaix  :  "  Go  say  to  the  First  Consul  that  I  die  with  the  re- 
gret of  having  done  too  little  for  posterity  !"  And  these,  of 
generals,  of  captains,  of  soldiers,  and  of  drummers  :  "  The 
Guard  dies,  but  does  not  surrender !"  "  Hither,  d'Auvergne, 
it  is  the  enemy  !"  "  I  die,  but  they  fly  !"  "  I  have  a  hand 
still  left  to  beat  the  charge  !"     And  a  number  of  others. 

Napoleon  too  gave  utterance  to  a  multitude  of  military 
apothegms : 

To  the  Commissioner  of  the  National  Convention,  at 
Toulon :  "  Mind  your  business  of  representative,  and  let  me 
mind  mine  of  artillerist."  To  the  troops  who  were  giving 
ground  on  the  terrible  bridge  of  Areola:  "Onward!  follow 
your  general !"  To  his  soldiers  in  Egypt :  "  Forty  ages 
look  down  upon  you  from  the  height  of  yonder  pyramids !" 
To  the  plenipotentiaries  at  Leoben  :  "  The  French  Republic 
is  like  the  sun.  Blind  are  tliose  who  do  not  see  it!"  To 
the  army  at  Marengo  :  "  Soldiers,  remember  it  is  my  habit 
to  sleep  on  the  field  of  battle  !"  To  his  soldiers  of  artillery, 
revolted  at  Turin :  "  This  flag,  which  you  have  deserted, 
will  be  hung  up  in  the  temple  of  Mars  and"  enveloped  in 
mourning.  Your  corps  is  disbanded."  To  the  fourth  regi- 
ment of  the  line  :  "  What  have  you  done  with  your  eagle  ? 
A  regiment  which  has  lost  its  eagle,  has  lost  its  all !"  "  Yes, 
but  here  are  two  standards  we  have  taken  from  the  enemy." 
"  Very  good,"  said  he,  smiling,  "  I  will  give  you  back  your 


78  THE      EMPIRE. 

eagle !"  To  General  Moreau,  on  presenting  him  a  pair  of 
pistols,  richly  mounted  :  "  I  designed  to  have  them  engraved 
with  the  names  of  all  your  victories.  But  there  was  not  room 
enough  to  contain  them."  To  a  grenadier,  surprised  by 
sleep,  and  whose  guard  Napoleon  was  •  mounting  :  "After 
so  much  fatigue,  it  may  be  well  permitted  a  brave  fellow 
like  3-0U  to  fall  asleep."  To  a  soldier  who  was  excusing 
himself  for  having,  against  orders,  let  General  Tourbert  enter 
his  tent:  "Go,  he  who  forced  the  Tyrol,  may  well  force  a 
sentinel."  To  a  Court  general,  who  solicited  him  for  a  mar- 
shal's staff:  "It  is  not  I  who  make  the  marshals,  it  is  vic- 
tory." To  a  Russian  commandant  of  artillery  at  Austei'litz, 
who  said  to  him  :  "  Sire,  have  me  shot !  I  have  lost  my 
pieces."  "  Young  man,  console  yourself!  it  is  possible  to  be 
beaten  by  my  army,  and  have  still  some  titles  to  glory." 
To  his  army  on  opening  the  Russian  campaign  :  "  Soldiers, 
Russia  is  hurried  along  by  fate  ;  let  her  destinies  be  accom- 
plished." On  beholding,  the  morning  of  the  battle  of  Mos- 
cow, the  sun  rise  cloudless:  "It  is  the  sun  of  Austerlitz!" 
To  his  grenadiers  v.'ho  were  alarmed  on  seeing  him  point 
the  cannon  at  Montcreir :  "  Come,  my  friends,  fear  nothing, 
the  ball  to  kill  me  is  not  yet  cast."  At  Grenoble,  on  his 
return  from  the  Isle  of  Elba,  in  presence  of  a  regiment  who 
hesitated,  he  leaped  off  his  horse,  and  uncovering  his  breast : 
"  If  there  be  one  amongst  you,  if  there  be  a  single  individ- 
^  ual  who  wishes  to  kill  his  general,  his  Emperor,  he  can  do 
so  :  here  1  am  !" 

But  it  is  in  his  military  harangues  especially  that  we  dis- 
cover Napoleon.  He  became  at  once  an  orator,  as  he  did  a 
general.  What  astonishes  particularly  in  so  young  a  man, 
is  the  fertility,  the  souplcness,  the  discernment  of  his  genius. 
He  knows  what  to  say,  what  to  do,  what  to  be  to  all,  on 
every  occasion.  No  one  has  taught  it  to  him,  and  yet  he 
knows  it  all.  Towards  the  Pope  he  is  perfectly  respectful, 
while  capturing  his  cities.  Prince  Charles  he  treats  with 
the  loftiness  of  an  equal  and  the  courtesy  of  a  knight.  lie 
enjoins  discipline,  he  honors  artists   and  learned   men,  he 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTE.  79 

protects  religion,  property,  women,  and  aged  persons.  He 
posts  sentinels  at  the  gates  of  the  churches.  He  sends 
Soult  every  Sunday  to  nnass,  with  his  staff.  In  Egypt,  he 
will  wear  the  turban,  if  necessary,  and  recite  the  Koran. 
He  regulates  provision  markets,  re-establishes  communica- 
tions, organizes  a  system  of  administrative  accountability, 
institutes  civil  municipalities  and  provisional  governments. 
Scarce  has  he  conquered  a  territory,  than  he  has  it  under 
the  full  operation  of  a  government.  It  is  not  in  the  name 
of  the  Directory  that  he  treats  with  other  powers,  but  in  the 
name  of  Bonaparte.  From  the  outset,  he  demeans  himself 
not  as  general-in-chief  of  the  army,  but  as  master.  The  old 
generals  tremble  in  presence  of  this  boyish  warrior.  They 
cannot  bear  those  curt  expressions  which  interrogate  them, 
that  look  that  pierces  them  through,  that  will  that  subjugates 
them.  They  feel  themselves  at  the  same  time  attracted  and 
repressed.  They  take  the  positions  assigned  them,  they  ad- 
mire in  silence,  they  obey,  and  with  them  the  rest  of  the 
army. 

There  is  nothing  like  his  manner  of  haranguing  in 
modern  or  in  ancient  times.  He  speaks  as  if  he  stood,  not 
on  a  hillock,  but  on  a  mountain.  One  would  imagine  he 
was  himself  a  hundred  cubits  hi^h.  He  does  not  confine 
his  attention  to  the  enemies  he  is  going  to  fight,  nor  to  the 
places  which  he  traverses  at  a  running  pace.  He  makes  a 
survey  of  Europe  and  of  the  globe.  His  army  is  not  a 
simple  army,  it  is  the  Grand  Army.  His  nation  is  not  a 
simple  nation,  it  is  the  Great  Nation.  He  erases  empires 
from  the  map.  He  seals  the  new  kingdoms  which  he  insti- 
tutes, with  the  pommel  of  his  sword.  He  pronounces  upon 
dynasties,  amid  the  thunder  and  lightning  of  battle,  the 
decrees  of  fate. 

The  figurative  language  of  Napoleon  would  be  ill  re- 
ceived at  this  day,  and  would  border  upon  the  ridiculous. 
We  care  no  more  for  the  pomp  of  war.  We  have  other 
wants,  other  ideas,  other  prejudices  perhaps.  But  at  that 
time  the  general  imagination  was  in  a  state  of  excitement. 


80  T  H  £      E  M  P  I  R  E  . 

m 

It  was  immediately  after  a  revolution  which  had  destroyed 
everything,  renewed  everything.  It  was  a  period  of  wild 
adventure  and  of  vague  speculation. 

This  was  the  time  for  Napoleon,  as  Napdleon  was  the 
man  for  this  time. — Scarce  has  he  relieved  Scherer  and 
taken  the  command  of  the  army  of  Italy,  than  he  rushes 
upon  the  enemy  and  at  once  bears  oft'  the  victory.  What 
imagination,  what  vigor,  what  confidence,  what  tone  of  con- 
queror  and  master  in  the  follov/ing  proclamation  of  a  general 
of  twenty-six  years  old  : 

"  Soldiers,  you  have,  in  fifteen  days,  gained  six  victories, 
taken  twenty-one  stand  of  colors,  fifty  pieces  of  cannon, 
several  fortified  places,  made  fifteen  hundred  prisoners,  and 
killed  or  wounded  over  ten  thousand  men.  You  are  the 
equals  of  the  conquerors  of  Holland  and  of  the  Rhine. 
Destitute  of  everything,  you  have  supplied  yourselves  with 
everything.  You  have  won  battles  without  cannon,  crossed 
rivers  without  bridges,  made  forced  marches  v/ithout  shoes, 
bivouacked  without  spiritous  liquor  and  often  without  bread. 
The  republican  phalanxes,  the  soldiers  of  liberty  were  alone 
capable  of  enduring  what  you  have  suffered.  Thanks  to 
you,  soldiers !  your  country  has  a  right  to  expect  of  you 
great  things.  You  have  still  battles  to  fight,  cities  to  take, 
rivers  to  pass.  Is  there  one  amongst  you  whose  courage 
flags  ?  One,  who  would  prefer  returning  to  the  steril 
summits  of  the  Apennines  and  the  Alps,  to  undergo  patiently 
the  insults  of  that  slavish  soldiery  t  No,  there  is  not  one 
such  among  the  victors  of  Montenotte,  of  Millesimo,  of  Diego 
and  of  Mondovi ! 

"Friends,  I  promise  you  that  glorious  conquest:  but  be 
the  liberators  of  peoples,  be  not  their  scourges  !" 

The  effect  of  this  discourse  upon  the  army  was  electrical, 
and  Napoleon  did  but  march  from  triumph  to  triumph,  in 
his  immortal  campaign  of  Italy.  He  enters  Milan,  and 
there,  to  sustain,  to  fan  still  higher  the  courage  of  his  sol- 
diers, he  says  to  them  : 

"  You  have  rushed  like  a  torrent  from  the  height  of  the 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  81 

Apennines.  Piedmont  is  delivered.  Milan  is  yours.  Your 
banner  floats  throughout  entire  Lombardy.  You  have 
crossed  the  Po,  the  Tessino,  the  Adda,  those  much-vaunted 
bulwarks  of  Italy.  Your  fathers,  your  mothers,  your 
wives,  your  sisters,  your  lovers  rejoice  at  your  triumphs, 
and  are  proud  of  their  connection  with  you.  Yes,  soldiers  ! 
you  have  done  much,  but  is  there  nothing  for  you  still  to 
do  ?  Will  posterity  have  to  reproach  you  with  having 
found  a  Capua  in  Lombardy  ?  Let  us  on  !  We  have  yet 
forced  marches  to  perform,  enemies  to  subdue,  laurels  to 
gather,  wrongs  to  avenge  ! 

*'  To  reinstate  the  Capitol  and  the  statues  of  its  heroes  ; 
to  awake  the  Roman  people  from  the  lethargy  of  ages  of 
enslavement — this  is  what  remains  for  us  to  accomplish  ! 

"  You  will  then  return  to  your  homes,  and  your  fellow- 
citizens,  pointing  you  out  to  one.  another  will  say :  He  was 
of  the  army  of  Italy  !" 

Never  before  had  French  soldiers  been  addressed  in  such 
language.  They  were  infatuated  with  him.  He  might 
have  led  them  to  the  extremities  of  the  earth.  This  was 
what  he  already  was  dreaming  of,  and  this  vision  of  his 
imagination  he  transfused  into  their  souls. 

Accordingly,  mark  how  he  addresses  his  companions  of 
Italy,  when  now  out  at  sea,  lie  was  sailing  towards  Malta, 
and  half  disclosed  to  them  the  secret  of  the  expedition  to 
Egypt : 

"  Soldiers,  you  are  a  wing  of  the  army  of  England  ! 
You  are  masters  of  the  modes  of  warfare  appropriate  to  moun- 
tains, to  plains,  to  sieges.  Naval  war  remains  to  com- 
plete your  experience.  The  Roman  legions  whom  you 
have  sometimes  imitated,  but  not  as  yet  equalled,  fought 
Carthage  successively  upon  this  sea  and  upon  the  plains  of 
Zama.  Victory  never  forsook  them,  because  they  were 
constantly  brave,  patient  of  fatigue,  well  disciplined,  reso- 
lute. But,  soldiers,  Europe  has  her  eyes  upon  you  !  You 
have  great  destinies  to  fulfil,  battles  to  fight,  fatigues  to  sur- 
mount !" 


82  T  H  E      E  M  P  I  R  E  . 

And  when,  from  the  top-mast,  the  fleet  descries  the  coast 
of  Alexandria,  Bonaparte  discovering  openly  his  designs  : 

''  Frenchmen,  you  are  about  to  undertake  a  conquest  of 
which  the  effects  upon  the  civilization  and  commerce  of  the 
world  are  incalculable.  The  first  city  you  are  to  meet  was 
founded  by  Alexander." 

According  as  he  penetrates  with  his  army  the  sands  of 
Egypt,  he  perceives  that  he  has  to  do  with  a  fanatical  people, 
ignorant  and  vindictive,  who  distrust  the  Christians,  but  who 
detest  still  more  the  insults,  the  extortions,  the  pride  and  ty- 
ranny of  the  Mamelukes.  To  flatter  these,  their  animosities 
and  prejudices,  he  addresses  them  a  proclamation  quite  in 
the  Turkish  style  : 

"  Cadis,  Sheiks,  Imans,  Chorbadgys,  you  will  be  told  that 
I  came  to  destroy  your  religion ;  do  not  believe  it.  Let 
your  answer  be  that  I  come  to  re-establish  your  rights  and 
punish  your  usurpers,  and  that  I  have  more  respect  than  the 
Mamelukes,  for  your  God,  his  prophet  and  the  Koran. 

"  Tell  your  people  that  all  men  are  equal  before  God. 
Wisdom,  talent  and  virtue  make  the  only  difference  be- 
tween them. 

"  But,  is  there  a -fine  country?  it  is  appropriated  by  the 
Mamelukes.  Is  there  a  beautiful  slave,  a  fine  horse,  a  fine 
house  ?  all  this  belongs  to  the  Mamelukes.  If  Egypt  be  their 
farm,  let  them  show  the  lease  which  God  has  given  them  of  it ! 
But  God  is  just  and  merciful  to  the  pQople.  The  Egyptians 
will  be  called  to  fill  the  public  stations.  Let  the  wisest,  the 
most  enlightened,  the  most  virtuous  govern,  and  the  people 
will  be  happy. 

"  You  had  formerly  large  cities,  great  canals,  a  flourish- 
ing commerce.  What  has  ruined  them  all,  if  not  the  ava- 
rice, the  injustice,  and  the  tyranny  of  the  Mamelukes? 

"  Cadis,  Sheiks,  Imans,  Chorbadgys,  tell  the  people  that 
we  too  are  true  Mussulmans.  Is  it  not  we  who  demolished 
the  Pope,  the  great  enemy  of  the  Mussulmans  ?  Are  we  not 
the  friends  of  the  Grand  Sei^nor  ? 

"  Thrice  happy  those  who  shall  be  found  on  our  side !  They 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  83 

will  prosper  in  fortune  and  rank.     Happy  those  who  shall 
»  remain  neutral  !     They  will  have  time  to  know  the  result, 
and  then  will  join  us. 

"  But  woe,  eternal  woe  to  those  who  take  arms  in  fa- 
vor of  the  Mamelukes  and  fight  against  us  !  There  will  be 
no  hope  for  them  ;  they  will  perish  !" 

After  the  revolt  of  Cairo,  he  avails  himself  of  the  conster- 
nation and  the  credulity  of  the  Egyptians,  to  present  him- 
self to  them  in  the  character  of  a  supernatural  being,  an 
emissary  of  God,  the  inevitable  man  of  destiny. 

"  Sheiks,  ULemans,  believers  of  Mahomet,  make  known 
to  the  people  that  those  who  have  been  enemies  to  me,  will 
find  no  refuge  either  in  this  world  or  the  other.  Is  there 
a  man  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that  Destiny  itself  directs  my 
operations  ?" 

"  Inform  the  people,  that  since  the  beginning  of  time  it 
was  written  that  after  having  overthrown  the  enemies  of 
Islamism,  demolished  the  Cross,  /  would  come  from  the  far 
West  to  fulfil  the  task  which  has  been  assigned  me.  Show 
the  people  that  in  the  holy  book  of  the  Koran,  in  more  tlian 
twenty  passages,  what  now  happens  has  been  foretold,  and 
what  is  to  happen  is  equally  explained. 

"  I  would  bring  every  one  of  you  to  account  for  the  most 
secret  sentiments  of  his  heart.  For  I  know  them  all,  even 
those  which  you  have  told  to  no  one.  But  the  day  will  come 
when  all  will  see  manifestly  that  Jam  under  the  conduct  of 
superior  guidance,  and  that  all  efforts  can  be  of  no  avail 
against  me." 

On  the  18th  Brumairo,  surrounded  by  his  brilliant  staff. 
Napoleon  apostrophized  the  Directory  with  the  haughty  au- 
thority of  a  master  demanding  the  accounts  of  his  stewards, 
and  as  if  he  had  been  already  the  sovereign  of  France : 

"  What  have  you  done  with  that  France  which  /  had  left 
you  so  flourishing  ?  I  had  left  you  peace,  I  find  war.  I 
had  left  you  the  millions  of  Italy,  I  find  everywhere  plun- 
dering laws  and  destitution What  has  become  of 


84  T  n  E     E  M  P  I  R  E  . 

a  hundred  thousand  Frenchmen,  whom  I  knew  my  com- 
panions m  glory  and  labor  ?     They  are  dead  !" 

The  morning  of  the  famous  battle  of  Austerlitz,  he  vividly 
initiates  his  army  into  the  inspirations  of  his  strategy : 

"  The  Russians  mean  to  turn  my  right,  and  will  present 
me  their  flank. 

"  Soldiers,  I  will  direct  myself  all  your  battalions.  I  will 
keep  away  from  the  firing,  if,  with  your  wonted  bravery, 
you  carry  disorder  and  confusion  into  the  enemy's  ranks. 
But,  if  the  victory  should  be  for  a  moment  doubtful,  you  will 
see  me  rush  to  fall  in  the  front  of  the  conflict.  Then  is  all 
over  with  the  honor  of  the  French  infantry,  the  first  in  the 
world.  This  victory  will  end  your  campaign.  Then  the 
peace  which  I  will  make  will  be  worthy  of  France,  of  you, 
and  of  me  !" 

What  grandeur  in  these  last  words  ! 

His  discourse  after  the  battle  is  a  master-piece  of  military 
eloquence.  He  is  pleased  with  his  soldiers.  He  goes 
among  them.  He  reminds  them  what  they  have  overcome, 
what  they  have  achieved,  what  will  be  said  of  them.  Not  a 
word  of  the  chiefs.  The  Emperor  and  the  soldiers,  France 
in  the  perspective,  peace  for  their  recompense,  glory  for 
their  reminiscence.  What  an  opening,  and  what  an 
ending  ! 

"  Soldiers,  I  am  pleased  with  you  ;  you  have  decorated 
your  eagles  with  immortal  glory.  ^  An  army  a  hundred 
thousand  strong,  commanded  by  the  Emperors  of  Russia 
and  of  Austria,  has  been,  in  less  than  four  hours,  either  cut 
to  pieces  or  dispersed  ;  such  as  have  escaped  your  sword 
are  drowned  in  the  marshes. 

"  Forty  stand  of  colors,  the  banners  of  the  imperial  guard 
of  Russia,  one  hundred  and  twenty  pieces  of  cannon,  twenty 
generals,  over  thirty  thousand  prisoners,  are  the  result  of 
this  day,  for  ever  memorable.  That  infantry,  so  much 
vaunted  and  superior  in  numbers,  has  not  been  able  to  with- 
stand your  shock,  and  henceforth  you  have  no  rivals  to 
J  read. 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  85 

"  Soldiers,  when  the  French  people  placed  upon  my  head 
the  imperial  crown,  I  relied  upon  you  to  maintain  it  ever  in 
that  eminence  of  glory  which  alone  could  give  it  value  in 
my  eyes.  Soldiers,  I  will  soon  lead  you  back  to  France. 
There,  you  will  be  the  object  of  my  tenderest  solicitude  ; 
and  it  will  suffice  to  say :  I  fought  at  Austerlitz,  when  the 
reply  will  be,  '  There  goes  a  hero  !'  " 

On  the  anniversary  of  this  battle,  he  recapitulates  com- 
placently the  accumulated  spoils  which  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  French,  and  inflames  their  ardor  against  the  Russians 
by  tlie  remembrance  of  the  victory.  "  They  and  we,  are 
we  not  the  soldiers  of  Austerlitz  V — This  is  the  stroke  of  a 
master  hand.  • 

"  Soldiers,  it  is  this  day  a  year  ago,  at  this  very  hour, 
that  we  were  upon  the  memorable  pFain  of  Austerlitz:  The 
Russian  battalions  fled  appalled.  Their  allies  are  no  more. 
Their  fortresses,  their  capitals,  their  magazines,  their  arse- 
nals, two  hundred  and  eighty  stand  of  colors,  seven  hundred 
field-pieces,  five  grand  strongholds  are  in  our  power.  The 
Oder,  the  Wasta,  the  Polish  deserts,  the  inclement  weather, 
nothing  has  been  able  to  arrest  your  course, — all  have  fled 
before  you.  The  French  eagle  hovers  over  the  Vistula. 
The  brave  and  unfortunate  Poles  imagine  they  behold  again 
the  legions  of  Sobieski. 

"  Soldiers,  we  shall  not  lay  down  our  arms  until  a  general 
peace  has  restored  to  our  commerce  its  freedom  and  its 
colonies.  We  have  conquered  on  the  Elba  and  the  Oder, 
Pondicherry,  our  Indian  establishments,  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  and  the  Spanish  colonies.  Who  should  give  the  Rus- 
sians the  hope  of  balancing  the  destinies  ?  Are  not  ihey 
and  we  the  soldiers  of  Austerlitz  ?" 

He  opens  the  Prussian  campaign  by  these  words,  which 
glow  like  powder  at  the  instant  of  explosion  : 

"  Soldiers,  I  am  in  the  midst  of  you  ;  you  are  the  van- 
guard of  the  great  people.  You  should  re-enter  France, 
but  under  triumphal  arches.  What !  you  would  then  have 
braved  the  seasons,  the  seas,  the  deserts,  vanquished  Europe 

8 


86  THEEMPIRE. 

several  times  coalesced  against  you,  borne  our  glory  from 
the  east  to  the  west,  but  to  I'eturn  to-day  to  your  country 
lilce  deserters,  and  hear  it  said  that  the  French  eagle  fled 
dismayed  at  the  sight  of  the  Prussian  armies  ? 

"  March  we  then,  since  your  nnoderation  has  failed  to  dis- 
abuse them  of  that  strange  infatuation.  Let  them  learn  that 
if  it  be  easy  to  obtain  an  increase  of  power  by  the  friendship 
of  the  great  people,  its  enmity  is  more  terrible  than  the  tem- 
pests of  the  ocean !" 

In  1309,  about  to  punish  Austria  for  her  repeated  per- 
fidies. Napoleon  confides  to  the  army  his  great  designs ;  he 
mixes  it,  he  associates  it,  with  his  own  vengeance.  He  does 
not  separate  himself  from  it ;  tli^  cause  is  its  own,  which  lie 
goes  to  defend.  What  a  flight  of  military  eloquence  in  this 
address  ! 

"  Soldiers,  I  was  surrounded  by  you  when  the  sovereign 
of  Austria  came  to  my  tent  in  Moravia.  You  heard  him 
implore  my  clemency,  and  vow  to  me  an  eternal  friendship. 
Victors  of  three  wars,  Austria  owes  everything  to  your 
generosity.  Three  times  has  she  been  guilty  of  perjury  ! 
Our  past  successes  are  assurances  to  you  of  the  victory 
which  awaits  us.  Let  us  march  then,  and  at  sight  of  us  let 
the  enemy  recognize  his  conquerors !" 

With  the  same  ardor,  he  animates  against  the  English  the 
expedition  to  Naples.      His  words  seem  winged. 

"  Soldiers,  march,  hurl  into  the  waves — should  they  wait 
for  you — the  impotent  battalions  of  those  tyrants  of  the  seas  ! 
Let  me  quickly  hear  that  the  sanctity  of  treaties  is  avenged, 
and  that  the  manes  of  my  brave  soldiers — butchered  in  the 
ports  of  Sicily,  on  their  return  from  Egypt,  after  having  es- 
caped all  the  perils  of  shipwrecks,  of  deserts,  and  of  a  hun- 
dred battles — are  appeased." 

It  is  still  to  beat  down  the  power  of  his  implacable,  of  his 
eternal  foe,  that  he  harangues  the  army  of  Germany,  on  his 
return,  and  opens  before  its  view  the  conquest  of  Iberia: 

"  Soldiers,  after  having  triumphed  on  the  banks  of  the 
Danube  and  the  Vistula,  you  have  traversed  Germany  by 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTt.  87 

forced  marches.  You  are  now  to  cross  Fi'ance,  without 
getting  a  moment's  repose.  Soldiers,  I  need  your  aid.  The 
hideous  presence  of  the  leopard  infests  the  continents  of  Spain 
and  Portugal.  Let  him,  at  sight  of  you,  fly  in  affright.  Let 
us  waft  our  victorious  eagles  as  far  as  the  Columns  of  Her- 
cules :  there  too  have  we  outrages  to  revenge  !  Soldiers, 
you  have  surpassed  the  renown  of  modern  armies ;  but  have 
you  equalled  the  glory  of  the  armies  of  Rome,  who,  in  the 
same  campaign,  triumphed  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Euphrates, 
in  Illyria  and  on  the  Tagus  ?" 

The  morning  of  the  battle  of  Moscow,  he  displays  to  the 
eyes  of  his  soldiers  the  new  harvest  of  laurels  to  be  gath- 
ered, and  places  them,  with  himself,  in  presence  of  their 
reminiscences  and  of  posterity  : 

"  Here  is  the  battle  which  you  have  so  much  desired ! 
Henceforth,  victory  depends  upon  yourselves ;  it  is  become 
a  necessity  to  you.  It  will  give  you  plenty,  good  winter- 
quarters,  and  an  early  return  home.  Conduct  yourselves 
as  at  Austerlitz,  at  Fried! and,  at  Witepsk,  at  Smolensk,  and 
let  the  latest  posterity  cite  with  pride  what  you  shall  have 
performed  this  day.  Be  it  said  of  you,  he  was  at  the  great 
battle  under  the  walls  of  Moscow  !" 

We  have  reached,  with  the  sun,  the  summit  of  the  moun- 
tain. We  must  descend  into  the  shade  :  let  us  pause  a  moment. 
Glory  goes  out  after  its  day  is  spent :  liberty  alone  repairs 
itself  by  its  very  exhaustion.  The  more  it  is  diffused,  the 
more  is  it  prolific.  But  Napoleon  was  unwilling  to  throw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  liberty.  Perhaps — I  say  perhaps — 
by  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  the  European  democracy, 
he  would  have  subverted,  more  effectually  than  with  his 
armies,  the  thrones  of  Europe.  This  he  would  not  do. 
How  could  he, — he,  equally,  nay,  more  a  despot  than  the 
other  potentates  ?  Too  upstart  for  the  kings,  too  aristocratic 
already  for  the  people.  Napoleon  had  soon  against  him  both 
the  people  and  the  kings.  He  had  stricken  terror  into  the 
dynasties.  The  dynasties  excited  the  nationalities  to  revolt. 
But,  an  army  may  be  triumphed  over ;  there  is  no  triumph- 


88  '  T  H  E     E  M  P  I  R  E  . 

ing  over  a  nation,  over  several  nations.  Genius  and  victory 
cannot  avail  in  the  end  against  the  independence  of  a  people, 
against  the  conjunction  of  right  and  number.  It  is  the  law 
of  humanity,  a  just  and  moral,  a  providential  law.  Napo- 
leon was  then  to  perish,  and  his  fall  was  marked  almost  to 
a  fixed  hour. 

It  is  sad  to  see  that  empire  of  gold  and  purple  torn  to 
pieces,  that  vast  monarchy  cracking  in  its  ill-jointed  planks, 
from  Rome  to  Texel,  from  Hamburg  to  the  Alps ;  those  ne- 
gotiations twenty  times  resumed,  and  as  often  abandoned ; 
those  desperate  resistances  of  the  hero,  those  tempests  of  his 
struggling  soul,  those  gleams  of  victory  shining  through  the 
night,  those  unspeakable  treacheries,  that  defection  of  cour- 
age in  his  friends,  those  secret  bargains  of  sated  avarice  and 
vanity,  those  invincible  inclinations  to  repose,  that  universal 
lassitude  of  France,  now  broken  down  and  disheartened. 

Pass  we,  pass  we  quickly  to  the  court  of  Fontainebleau, 
to  listen  to  the  farewell  of  Napoleon  to  the  faithful  remnant 
of  his  army ;  to  those  soldiers  who  could  not  tear  themselves 
from  their  general,  and  who  wept  around  him.  There  is 
not,  in  all  antiquity,  a  scene  at  once  more  heart-rending 
and  sublime. 

"  Soldiers,  I  bid  you  farewell.  For  twenty  years  that  we 
have  been  together,  your  conduct  has  left  me  nothing  to  de- 
sire. I  have  always  found  you  on  the  road  to  glory.  All 
the  powers  of  Europe  have  combined  in  arms  against  me. 
A  few  of  my  generals  have  proved  untrue  to  their  duty  and 
to  France.  France  herself  has  desired  other  destinies  ;  with 
you  and  the  brave  men  who  still  are  faithful,  I  might  have 
carried  on  a  civil  war;  but  France  would  be  unhappy.  Be 
faithful,  then,  to  your  new  king;  be  obedient  to  your  new 
commanders,  and  desert  not  our  beloved  country.  Do  not 
lament  my  lot ;  I  will  be  happy  when  I  shall  know  that  you 
are  so.  I  might  have  died  ;  if  I  consent  to  live,  it  is  still  to 
promote  your  glory.  I  will  write  the  great  things  that  we 
have  achieved.  ...  I  cannot  embrace  you  all,  but  I  embrace 
your  general.     Come,  General  Petit,  that  I  may  press  you 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  89 

to  my  heart !  Bring  me  the  eagle  !  that  I  may  embrace  it 
also  !  Ah  !  dear  eagle,  may  this  kiss  which  I  give  thee  find 
an  echo  to  the  latest  posterity  !  Adieu,  my  children ;  the 
best  wishes  of  my  heart  shall  be  always  with  you  :  do  not 
forget  me  !" 

He  departs,  and  from  the  recesses  of  the  Isle  of  Elba  he 
organizes  his  fabulous  expedition.  Before  he  has  landed, 
while  still  upon  that  frail  skiff  which  bears  Csesar  and  his 
good  fortune,  he  commits  to  the  waves,  he  scatters  upon  the 
winds  his  proclamation.  He  wakes  before  his  soldiers'  eyes 
the  shades  of  a  hundred,  and  sends  his  eagles  before  him 
to  herald  his  triumphant  return. 

'•  Soldiers,  in  my  exile  I  have  heard  your  voice.  .  .  .  We 
have-not  been  vanquished  ....  but  betrayed;  we  ought  to 
forget  that  we  were  the  masters  of  nations,  but  we  ought 
not  to  suffer  that  any  of  them  should  intermeddle  in  our  af- 
fairs. Who  dare  pretend  to  be  master  over  us  ?  Resume 
those  eagles  which  you  bore  at  Ulm,  at  Austerlitz,  at  Jena, 
at  Montmirail !  The  veterans  of  the  army  of  Sambre-et- 
Meuse,  of  the  Rhine,  of  Italy,  of  Egypt,  of  the  West,  of  the 

Grand  Army,  are  humbled Come,  range  yourselves 

under  the  banners  of  your  chief.  ....  Victory  will  march 

at  a  charging  pace The  eagle,  with  its  national  colors, 

will  fly  from  steeple  to  steeple,  till  it  alights  on  the  towers  of 
Notre-Dame !...." 

On  the  next  day  after  his  arrival  at  the  Tuillcries,  and 
amid  the  astonishment  of  the  public  mind,  which  succeeded  a 
night  of  enthusiasm  and  intoxication,  he  rallies  the  old  Guard 
around  his  banner.  He  presents  to  them  his  brave  com- 
panions of  Elba.  What  gradation,  what  art,  what  propri- 
ety, what  oratorical  ability  in  this  effusion  ! 

''  Soldiers,  behold  the  officers  of  battalion  who  have  ac- 
companied me  in  my  misfortune  :  they  are  all  my  friends  ; 
they  are  dear  to  my  heart.  Every  time  I  saw  them,  they 
represented  to  me  the  several  regiments  of  the  army. 
Among  these  six  hundred  brave  men,  there  are  soldiers  of 
every  regiment ;  all  brought  me  back  those  great  days  whose 

8* 


90  THEEMPIRE. 

memory  is  so  dear  to  me  ;  for  all  were  covered  with  honorable 
scars  received  in  those  memorable  battles.  In  loving  them, 
it  is  you  all,  soldiers  of  the  French  army,  that  I  loved.  .  .  . 
They  bring  you  back  these  eagles ;  let  them  be  your  rally- 
ing-point;  in  giving  them  to  the  Guard,  I  give  them  to  the 
whole  army  ;  treachery  and  untoward  circumstances  had 
wrapped  them  in  a  shroud  ;  but,  thanks  to  the  French  peo- 
pie  and  to  you,  they  reappear  resplendent  in  all  their  glory. 
Swear  that  they  shall  always  be  found  when  and  wherever 
the  interest  of  the  country  may  call  them  !  Let  the  traitors 
and  those  who  would  invade  our  territory,  be  never  able  to 
endure  their  gaze." 

It  would  be  too  long  to  unfold  all  the  beauties  of  situation 
of  this  piece. 

Some  days  after,  in  the  Champ-de-Mars,  he  speaks  no 
more  of  the  glory  of  battles  and  the  devotion  of  his  compan- 
ions ;  he  flatters,  exalts,  caresses,  before  the  people  and  the 
Legislative  Body,  the  great  sentiment  of  the  national  sover- 
eignty. 

"  Emperor,  Consul,  Soldier,  I  owe  all  to  the  people!  In 
prosperity,  in  adversity,  on  the  battle-field,  in  the  council,  on 
ihe  throne,  in  exile,  France  has  been  the  sole  and  constant 
object  of  my  thoughts  and  actions.  Like  that  King  of  Ath- 
ens, I  have  sacrificed  myself  for  my  people,  in  the  hope  of 
seeing  realized  the  promise  made  to  preserve  to  France  her 

natural  integrity,  her  honor  and  herjights " 

Subsequently,  he  conjures  the  Chambers  to  forget  their 
quarrels  in  presence  of  the  greatness  of  the  national  dan- 
ger.    These  words  have  been  retained  : 

"  Let  us  not  follow  the  example  of  the  Lower  Empire, 
which,  pressed  on  every  side  by  the  Barbarians,  has  made 
itself  the  laughing-stock  of  posterity,  by  wasting  its  time 
upon  abstract  discussions,  at  the  moment  the  battering-ram 

was  shattering  the  gates  of  the  city It  is  in  times  of 

difficulty  that  the  great  nations,  like  the  great  men,  display 
all  the  energy  of  their  character." 

When  all  is  over,  when  he  is  stricken  by  the  thunderbolt 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE,  91 

of  Waterloo,  how  touching  are  his  last  words  to  the  army  ! 
How  he  'etTaces  himself!  how  he  hides  himself  from  his  own 
eyes  !  it  is  no  more  to  soldiers,  but  to  patriots,  to  citizens,  to 
brothers,  that  he  addresses  himself.  He  names  himself  no 
more  their  sovereign  or  tiieir  general  ;  it  is  no  more  the  Em- 
peror, it  is  simple  Napoleon,  it  is  their  comrade  in  arms  who 
bids  them  farewell. 

"  Soldiers,  though  absent,  I  will  attend  your  footsteps ;  it 
was  the  country  above  all  that  you  served  in  obeying  me, 
and  if  I  have  had  some  share  in  your  affection,  I  owed  it  to  my 
ardent  love  for  France,  our  common  mother.  Soldiers,  yet 
a  few  efforts,  and  the  coalition  is  dissolved.  Napoleon  will 
recognize  you  by  the  blows  you  strike  !" 

But  his  career  was  at  an  end  :  the  Bellerophon  stood  al- 
ready at  anchor  in  the  British  Channel.  Napoleon  "went 
aboard  with  that  confidence,  rather  naive,  of  great  men  in 
adversity.  It  is  on  board  this  vessel  that  he  wrote  the  Prince 
llecrent  this  letter  so  well  known  and  of  so  much  noble  sim- 
plicity  : 

"  Royal  Highness, — 

'•  A  butt  to  the  factions  who  divide  my  country  and  to  the 
enmity  of  the  greatest  powers  of  Europe,  I  have  terminated 
my  political  career,  and  come,  like  Themistocles,  to  sit  by 
the  fireside  of  the  British  people.  J  place  myself  under  the 
protection  of  their  laws,  which  I  claim  from  your  Royal 
Highness,  as  the  most  powerful,  the  most  consistent,  and  the 
most  generous  of  my  enemies  !" 

Such  was  wont  to  be  the  conduct,  such  the  language  of 
the  great  citizens  of  antiquity,  when  struck  down  by  ostra- 
cism or  beaten  by  the  tempests  of  their  country,  they  went 
to  seek  from  foreigners  the  hospitality  of  exile. 

Yet  a  few  words,  reader !  we  part  but  regretfully  with 
great  men  living  or  dead,  and  I  would  protract  your  admi- 
ration of  this  one  to  the  end. 

In  the  recesses  of  that  island,  his  dreary  prison,  his  imagi- 
nation turned  back  upon  the  past,  revisited  Egypt  and  the 
East,  and  lit  up  with  the  brilliant  reminiscences  of  his  youth : 


02  T  H  E       E  31  P  I  R  E  . 

"  It  would  have  been  better,"  he  used  to  say,  striking  himself 
on  the  forehead,  "  had  I  not  left  Egypt.  Arabia  awaits  a 
man.  With  the  French  in  reserve,  the  Arabs  and  the 
Egyptians  for  auxiliaries,  I  might  have  made  myself  master 
of  India,  and  I  would  to-day  beEmperor  of  the  whole  East." 

Then,  as  if  liberty,  more  attractive  than  the  empire  of 
the  universe,  had  shed  upon  his  eyes  a  gleam  of  new  light, 
he  would  cry  : 

"  The  grand  and  beautiful  truths  of  the  French  Revolution 
will  endure  forever,  such  is  the  lustre,  the  monuments,  the 
wonders  which  we  have  woven  around  them.  We  have 
washed  away  their  early  stains  in  the  waters  of  glory. 
They  will  be  immortal.  Emanating  from  the  tribune, 
cemented  by  the  blood  of  battles,  adorned  with  the  laurels 
of  victory,  hailed  by  the  acclamations  of  the  people,  sanc- 
tioned by  treaties,  they  can  never  more  retrograde.  They 
live  in  Great  Britain,  they  illuminate  America,  they  are 
nationalized  in  France.  Here  is  the  tripod  whence  will  is- 
sue the  lio-ht  of  the  world  !" 

Imao;es  of  war  were  ever  floatinof  before  him  in  that  sick- 
ly  state  of  his  mind,  dreamy  and  fluctuating,  between  waking 
and  slumber. 

"  Go,  my  friends,  return  to  Europe,  go  revisit  your  fami- 
lies ;  for  me,  I  will  again  see  my  brave  companions  in  the 
Elysian  Plains.  Yes,  Kleber,  Desaix,  Bessieres,  Duroc, 
Ney,  Murat,  Massena,  Berthier,  all^will  come  to  meet  me ; 
at  sight  of  me,  they  will  be  all  delirious  with  enthusiasm 
and  glory.  We  will  talk  of  our  wars  with  the  Scipios,  the 
Hannibals,  the  Csesars,  the  Fredericks ;  unless  in  that  re- 
gion," he  would  say  smiling,  "  it  should  excite  suspicion  to 
see  so  many  warriors  together." 

In  his  frenzy,  he  would  imagine  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  army  of  Italy.  He  would  hear  the  drum,  and  then  cry  : 
^'Steingel,  Desaix,  Massena — quick,  run,  take  the  charge, 
they  arc  ours  !" 

Sometimes  he  used  to  talk  aloud  and  all  alone,  sometimes 
dictate  to  his  secretaries;  at  others  lie  wrote  upon  scattered 


NAPOLEON      BONAPARTE.  93 

leaves  the  thoughts  which  burst  by  bounds,  by  fragments, 
from  his  soul  too  full  to  contain  them. 

"  A  second  Prometheus,  I  am  transfixed  upon  a  rock, 
where  a  vulture  gnaws  my  vitals.  Yes,  I  have  brought 
fire  from  heaven  wherewith  to  endow  France.  The  fire 
has  remounted  to  its  source,  and  here  am  I !  The  love  of 
glory  is  like  that  bridge  thrown  by  Satan  over  chaos,  to 
pass  from  hell  to  paradise.  Glory  joins  the  past  to  the 
future,  from  which  it  is  separated  by  an  immeasurable 
abyss.     Nothing  to  my  son — nothing  save  my  name  !" 

In  his  accesses  of  melancholy,  he  believed  and  used  to 
say,  that  he  was  repulsed  alive  and  dead  from  the  land  of 
Europe.  ■"  Let  me  be  buried  under  the  willows  by  yonder 
spring,  whose  water  is  so  sweet  and  limpid." 

But  this  was  not  the  last  wish  of  his  testament,  the  last 
look  cast  back  upon  the  absent  country,  the  last  sigh  ex- 
haled from  that  great  soul. 

"  I  desire  that  my  ashes  repose  on  the  banks  of  the  Seine, 
in  the  midst  of  that  people  whom  I  have  so  much  loved !" 

This  was  the  inscription,  the  sole  inscription  which  should 
have  been  placed  upon  the  flying  streamers  of  the  vessel 
which  conveyed  his  remains,  upon  the  pedestals  of  the 
columns  and  on  the  frontispiece  of  the  triumphal  arches 
which  lined  the  way,  upon  the  violet  hangings  of  the  funeral 
car,  upon  the  eighty-six  banners  of  the  departments,  upon 
the  porch  of  the  Invalides  and  upon  his  tombstone. 

The  more  this  tomb  retreats  into  the  shade  of  time,  the 
more  radiant  will  it  be  with  glory  to  tlie  eyes  of  posterity. 
Extraordinary  men  are  like  mountains,  and  their  image 
seems  to  grow  in  proportion  as  they  recede  from  our  view, 
and  stand  out  alone  in  the  confines  of  the  horizon. 

But  let  us  try  to  overcome  the  illusion  of  that  deceitful 
perspective,  and  try  to  see  Napoleon  as  he  will  be  seen  by 
the  sages  of  posterity. 

As  Statesman,  he  had  at  once  too  much  genius  and  too 
much  ambition  to  consent  to  lay  down  the  supreme  authority, 


94  T  H  E     E  M  P  I  R  E  . 

and   to   reign    under    any   master   whatever — Parliament, 
People,  or  King. 

As  a  Warrior,  he  lost  the  throne,  not  because  he  did  not 
restore  legitimacy,  or  because  he  stifled  liberty,  but  because 
he  was  beaten  in  war.  He  was  not,  he  could  not  have 
been  a  Monk  or  a  Washington,  for  the  very  simple  reason 
that  he  was  Napoleon. 

Pie  has  reigned  as  reign  all  the  powers  of  this  world,  by 
the  force  of  his  principle.  He  has  fallen  as  fall  all  the 
powers  of  this  world,  by  violence  and  the  abuse  of  that 
principle.  Greater  than  Alexander,  than  Charlemagne,' 
than  Peter,  and  than  Frederick,  he  has,  like  them,  im- 
pressed  his  name  upon  his  age.  Like  them,  he  -^vas  a  law- 
giver. Like  them,  he  founded  an  empire.  His  universal 
memory  lives  beneath  the  tents  of  the  Arab,  and  traverses, 
with  the  canoes  of  the  savage,  the  distant  rivers  of  the  Oceanic 
Islands.  The  people  of  France,  so  ready  to  forget,  of  a 
revolution  which  has  overturned  the  world  have  retained 
but  this  name.  The  soldiers  in  their  bivouac  talk  of  no 
other  captain,  and  when  they  pass  through  the  cities  their 
eyes  rest  upon  no  other  image. 

When  the  people  accomplished  the  Revolution  of  July, 
the  banner,  all  trampled  in  the  dust,  which  was  raised  anew 
by  the  soldier- workingmen,  extempore  chiefs  of  the  insurrec- 
tion— this  banner  was  the  banner  surmounted  with  the, 
French  eagle  ;  it  was  the  banner  of  Austerlitz,  of  Jena  and  of 
Wagram,  rather  than  that  of  Jemappes  and  of  Fleurus  ;  it 
was  the  banner  which  was  planted  on  the  towers  of  Lisbon, 
of  Vienna,  of  Berlin,  of  Rome,  of  Moscow,  rather  than  that 
wliich  floated  above  tiie  federacy  of  the  Champ-de-Mars ; 
it  was  the  banner  which  had  been  riddled  with  balls  at 
Waterloo  ;  it  was  the  banner  which  the  emperor  lield  em- 
braced at  Fontainebleau  while  bidding  farewell  to  his  old 
guard  ;  it  was  the  banner  which  shaded  at  St.  Helena  the 
face  of  the  expiring  hero :  it  was,  in  one  word,  to  say  all, 
the  banner  of  Napoleon  ! 

But  stop  :  for  on  the  other  hand  I  hear  muttering  already 


NAPOLEON     BONAPARTE.  95 

a  severer  voice,  and'  fear  that  history,  in  her  turn,  prepares 
her  indictment  ai^ainst  him,  and  chancres : 

"  He  dethroned  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  He  was 
Emperor  of  the  French  republic,  and  he  became  despot. 
He  threw  the  weisfht  of  his  sword  into  the  scales  of  the  law. 
He  incarcerated  individual  liberty  in  the  state  prisons.  He 
stifled  the  freedom  of  the  press  under  the  gag  of  the  censor- 
ship. He  violated*  the  trial  by  jury.  He  held  in  abase- 
ment and  servitude  the  Courts,  the  Legislative  Body,  and 
the  Senate.  He  depopulated  the  fields  and  workshops.  He 
grafted  upon  miUtarism  a  new  nobility,  which  could  not  fail 
to  become  more  insupportable  than  the  ancient,  because 
without  the  same  antiquity,  or  the  same  prestiges.  He  levied 
arbitrary  taxes.  He  meant  there  should  be  throughout  the 
whole  empire  but  one  voice,  his  voice,  but  one  law,  his  will. 
Our  capitols,  our  cities,  our  armies,  our  fleets,  our  palaces,  our 
museums,  our  magistrates,  our  citizens,  became  his  capitols, 
his  towns,  his  armies,  his  fleets,  his  palaces,  his  museums, 
his  magistrates,  and  his  subjects.  He  drew  after  him  the 
nation  over  the  battle-fields  of  Europe,  where  we  have  left 
no  other  remembrance  than  the  insolence  of  our  victories, 
our  carcasses,  and  our  gold.  In  fine,  after  having  be- 
sieged the  forts  of  Cadiz,  after  having  held  the  keys  of  Lisbon 
and  of  Madrid,  of  Vienna  and  of  Berlin,  of  Naples  and  of 
Rome  ;  after  having  shaken  the  very  pavements  of  Moscow 
beneath  the  thunder  of  his  cannonading,  lie  has  rendered 
France  less  irreat  than  he  found  her — all  bleedin,<x  of  her 
wounds,  dismantled,  exposed,  impoverished,  and  humbled." 

Ah  !  if  I  have  too  ardently,  perhaps,  admired  this  extra- 
ordinary man,  who  has  done  my  country  so  much  good  and  so 
much  evil,  whose  memory  will  be  eternally  glorified  in  the 
workshops  and  by  the  cottage  fireside,  and  whose  popular 
name  was  blended,  in  my  imagination,  with  all  the  prosperi- 
ties and  all  the  hopes  of  the  country  ; — if  the  pride  of  his 
conquests  has  tickled  too  much  my  heart, — if  the  rays  of  his 
glory  have  too  much  fascinated  my  youthful  gaze, — from 


9G  THEEMPIRE. 

the  momentj  O  Liberty,  that  I  have  come  to  know  thee, 
from  the  moment  thy  pure  effulgence  has  shed  light  upon 
my  soul,  it  is  thee  that  I  have  followed,  thee  from  whom  my 
arms,  now  entwining  thee,  can  never  more  be  dissevered, — 
thee,  Liberty,  sole  passion  of  the  generous  heart,  sole  treasure 
worthy  of  being  coveted  ! — thee,  that  preferrest,  to  men  who 
pass  away,  principles  which  are  eternal,  and  to  the  brutali- 
ties of  force  the  victories  of  intellect, — three,  who  art  the  mo- 
ther of  order,  though  thy  calumniators  would  coif  thee  in  the 
honnet-rouge  of  anarchy, — thee,  who  boldest  all  citizens  to 
be  equals  and  all  men  to  be  brothers, — thee,  who  dost  recog- 
nize no  legal  superiority  but  that  of  responsible  magistrates, 
no  moral  superiority  but  that  of  virtue, — thee,  who  seest 
pass  before  thee  the  stormy  flight  of  absolute  empires,  like 
those  clouds  that  dim  a  moment  the  purity  of  a  serene  hea- 
ven,— thee,  who  gleamest  across  the  bars  of  the  political 
prisoner, — thee,  who  art  the  midnight  meditation  of  the 
sage, — thee,  whom  the  slave  invokes  in  his  chains, — thee, 
whom  the  very  tombs  seem  solemnly  to  sigh  for, — thee, 
who,  in  the  guise  of  a  travelling  workman,  wilt  make  the 
tour  of  Europe,  to  stir  up  the  cities  and  kingdoms  by  the 
force  and  the  fascination  of  thy  tongue, — thee,  who  wilt  one 
day  see  disappear  before  thy  triumphal  march,  custom- 
house barriers,  secret  tribunals,  prisoners  of  state,  capital 
punishments,  aristocracies,  close  corporations,  standing 
armies,  censorships,  and  monopolies, — thee,  who,  in  a  holy 
alliance,  wilt  confederate  the  nations  differing  in  language 
and  manners,  in  the  name  of  a  common  interest,  in  the  name 
of  their  independence,  their  dignity,  their  civilization,  their 
tranquillity  and' their  happiness, — thee,  who  despisest  idle 
conquests  and  false  greatnesses,  and  who  hast  not  descended 
■  from  heaven  upon  the  earth  to  oppress,  but  to  redeem  and 
embellish  it, — thee,  who  art  the  life  of  commerce  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  fine  arts, — thee,  who  canst  be  served  but 
with  disinterestedness,  who  canst  be  loved  but  with  rapture, 


N  A  P  O  LEO  N      BONAPARTE.  97 

— thee,  who  art  the  first  aspiration  of  youth,  who  art  the 
sublime  invocation  of  old  age, — thee,  Liberty,  who,  after 
having  broken  their  chains,  wilt  conduct  the  last  slaves,  with 
palm-branches  in  hand  amid  hymns  of  glory,  at  the  latest 
funeral  of  Despotism. 

9 


THE    RESTORATION. 


It  was  by  no  means  without  eclat  that  epoch  of  our  po- 
litical life,  when  liberty,  so  long  compressed  beneath  the  hand 
of  a  despot,  raised  aloft  her  head,  when  France  awoke  to  ac- 
cents hitherto  unknown,  when  parliamentary  Eloquence  un- 
bound her  tongue  and  spoke,  when  every  interest,  every 
passion,  every  hope  seemed  to  have  met  around  the  tribune, 
there  to  dispute  the  possession  of  the  present  and  the  domina- 
tion of  the  future. 

The  Empire,  struck  down  in  the  person  of  its  chief,  had 
still  some  life  in  the  remembrances  of  the  old  soldiers. 
France  must  always  have  some  passion  or  other.  Liberty 
had  succeeded  to  glory.  The  emigrants  were  dreaming  of 
JLouis  XV.,  the  military  men  of  Napoleon,  the  young  men, 
of  the  Revolution.  The  people  thronged  around  the  Forum. 
It  was  something  to  be  then  a  deputy  !  It  was  much  more 
than  an  orator  !  At  the  present  day,  we  still  hear  spoken 
the  same  tongue.  The  president  is  seated  on  the  same 
gilded  chair.  The  same  cariatides  still  support  the  same 
tribune  ;  but  the  people  crowd  no  more  upon  the  steps  and 
in  the  porches  of  the  temple.  They  no  longer  put  faith  in 
the  oracles  of  representative  government.  The  season  is 
cold,  night  approaches,  the  sun  goes  down  the  horizon,  and 
its  paleing  beams  cease  to  illumine  the  world. 

Three  political  schools  disputed  the  ground  of  the  Resto- 
ration :  The  English  school,  the  Legitimist  school,  and  the 
Liberal  school. 

M.  de  Serre  was  the  orator  of  the  English  school,  of 
which  Royer-Collard  was  the  philosopher.     They  had  both, 


THERESTORATION.  99 

for  principle,  the  sovereignty  of  reason  ;  for  means,  the 
hierarchy  of  powers  ;  for  end,  the  parliamentary  monarchy. 

Around  these,  moved  Camille-Jordan,  who  bathed  with 
unction  his  mellifluent  phrase  ; — Pasquier,  whose  quick- 
silvery  argumentation  escaped  all  analysis  and  refutation ; 
— Saint- Aulaire,  who  tossed  off  his  words  with  the  negligent 
and  somewhat  impertinent  grace  of  an  aristocratic  supercili- 
ousness ; — Courvoisier,  the  readiest  and  most  exhaustless  of 
talkers,  if  Thiers  had  never  existed  ; — Simeon,  a  profound 
jurisconsult ; — de  Gazes,  a  minister  of  marked  elegance  and 
a  charming  figure,  whose  phraseology  was  not  without  copi- 
ousness and  flexibility,  nor  his  gesture  unimposing  ;  who 
pressed,  hurried  along  by  the  exigencies  of  the  moment,  by 
the  phantasies  and  the  fears  of  the  Court,  by  the  flux  and 
reflux  of  a  thousand  enemies,  gave  himself  up  to  the  drift 
of  all  sorts  of  currents  ;  who  muzzled  the  liberty  of  the 
press  and  suspended  the  reactions  of  the  reign  of  terror,  and 
who,  master  of  his  master  and  of  France,  blended  real  ser- 
vices with  great  faults,  and  the  prudence  of  a  politician  with 
the  weaknesses  of  a  courtieur  ; — Laine,  a  statesman,  vis- 
ionary, melancholy,  dreamy,  whose  voice  moaned  forth  the 
vague  intonations  of  a  harp  of  Ossian  ;  a  character  without 
decision,  a  hand  tremulous  and  effeminate,  which  was  una- 
ble to  hold  the  reins  of  power  ;  but  an  orator  of  grave  de- 
portment, well-modulated  delivery,  who  had  sometimes  the 
eloquence  of  the  heart,  and  who,  in  compassion  for  the  pro- 
scribed, used  to  become  affected  on  the  subject  of  their  woes, 
and  embrace,  in  their  behalf,  with  tears  and  supplications, 
the  altars  of  mercy  and  commiseration  ; — in  fine,  Beugnot 
the  keenest  man  of  the  kingdom  of  France  and  Navarre, 
next  to  M.  de  Lemonville,  who  himself  was  inferior  to  M. 
de  Talleyrand. 

The  Legitimist  school  was  divided  into  two  parties :  One 
was  composed  of  hot-headed  men,  who  were  for  pushing  all 
things  to  the  absolute,  or  of  men  of  milder  mood,  devoted 
to  God  in  heaven,  and  to  the  King  upon  earth.  The  other 
was  composed  of  men  no  less  true  to  the  faith,  but  modified 


100  THE     RESTORATION. 

by  the  exercise  of  power,  and  who  accommodated  themselves 
to  the  Charter  as  to  a  necessity  more  potent  than  them,  and 
than  the  royalty  which  had  to  suffer  it. 

At  the  head  of  the  former  phalanx  shone  M.  de  la  Bour- 
donnaie,  who  proposed  the  famous  categories  and  caused  the 
expulsion  of  Manuel.  A  counter-revolutionist,  of  the  tem- 
per of  the  ancient  Conventionalists  ;  kept  in  check  by  politi- 
cal considerations  ;  more  imperious  than  able,  and  whose 
language  was  not  destitute  of  either  vigor  or  elevation  : 
— M.  de  Lalot,  whose  fulminating  invective  overthrew  the 
Richelieu  ministry ;  full  of  imagery  in  his  style,  and  of  a 
vehement  and  colored  copiousness. 

— M.  DuDON,  so  profoundly  versed  in  the  study  of  adminis- 
trative legislation,  whose  portly  head  never  bowed  before  an 
objection,  and  who  received,  with  the  muzzle  to  his  breast, 
the  balls  of  the  Opposition,  with  all  the  phlegm  of  an  Eng- 
lishman. 

— M.  de  Castelbajac,  who  was  in  a  constant  flurry  on  his 
bench,  striking  with  foot  and  fist,  clamoring,  exclaiming  and 
interrupting  the  deputies  all  incredulous  of  his  monarchi- 
cal faith. 

— M.  de  BoNALD,  an  orator  rather  misty,  a  religious  philoso- 
pher, counterpart  to  Royer-CoUard,  a  moral  philosopher, 
and  unquestionably  one  of  the  greatest  writers  of  our  times. 
— M.  de  Salaberry,  a  warm  royalist,  a  petulant  orator, 
marching  pistol  in  hand  to  the  encounter  of  the  Liberals, 
and  pouring  upon  them,  from  the  height  of  the  tribune,  the 
boiling  imprecations  of  his  wrath. 

— M.  de  Marcellus,  with  whom  royalty  was  not  merely  a 
principle,  but  a  divinity,  and  who  prostrated  himself  before 
his  idol,  with  the  naive  fervor  of  a  pilgrim  and  a  knight. 

M.  DE  ViLLELE  stood  out,  like  a  large  figure,  on  the  back- 
ground of  this  picture. 

Around  M.  de  Villele  were  seen  to  group  themselves  men 
of  a  very  different  order  of  merit ;  M.  Corbiere,  one  of  the 
most  learned  jurisconsults  of  a  province  where  they  are  all 
learned  ;  a  dabbler  in  second-hand  literature  y  a  dialectitian 


THE     RESTORATION.  101 

caustic  and  cogent,  who  puts  wings  to  his  shaft,  that  it  might 
fly  the  quicker  to  its  destination -^ayid  pierce  4'he' deeper  his 
adversaries  ; — M.  de  Bcrbisj-arr  cibfe  explorer"ef  the  budget, 
a  man  of  lucid  intellecf  ^anij,  uprig>ir cwi^cie^^qe:;— -^M.  de 
Peyronet,  remarkable  for'the'claricn'viiirhtidns  dif -Ins  voice, 
the  ingenious  adroitness  of  his  logic  and  the  flowery  pomp 
of  his  language  ; — M.  de  Martignac,  that  melodious  orator 
who  played  upon  the  vocal  instrument,  like  Tulon  upon  the 
flute ; — M.  M.  Josse  de  Beauvoir  and  Cornet-d'Incouri, 
light-armed  scouts  detached  from  the  wings  of  the  ministerial 
phalanx  to  commence  the  engagement  and  spy  the  leaders 
at  the  head,  in  the  copsewood  of  the  Opposition; — M.  Pardes- 
sus,  a  lucid  intellect,  an  eloq.uent  speaker,  a  profound  juris- 
consult ; — M.  Ravez,  the  eagle  of  the  Girondist  bar,  cele- 
brated for  the  dignity  of  his  bearing  and  the  simple  beauty 
of  his  voice ;  one  of  those  men  who  command  wherever 
they  appear  and  where  they  speak,  the  attention  of  their  au- 
ditors ;  powerful  in  his  dialectic,  learned  in  his  expositions, 
master  of  his  own  passions  and  of  those  of  others,  and  who, 
had  he  not  been  President  of  the  Chamber,  might,  as  orator, 
have  swayed  the  section  of  the  Right. 

The  Liberal  School  was  a  belligerent  school.  M.  de 
Serre  was  the  first  to  enter  the  lists,  and  after  having  fired 
his  rounds  and  emptied  his  knapsack,  he  intrenched  himself 
behind  the  ramparts  of  power.  Manuel  commanded  the 
corps  of  reserve  of  the  Opposition,  and  General  Foy  led  the 
van.  Benjamin  Constant  attacked  the  censorship,  Lafitte 
the  budget,  Bignot  the  diplomacy.  D'Argenson  launched 
into  the  air,  out  of  sight,  the  first  rockets  of  radicalism. 
Casmir-Perier,  carried  beyond  the  ranks  by  the  impetuosity 
of  his  martial  ardor,  challenged  the  minister  to  single  com- 
bat. Corcelles,  Stanislas,  Girardin  and  Chauvelin,  kept 
hovering  around  their  benches  and  sent  him,  even  in  re- 
treating, some  effective  darts ;  and  as  final  consequence  of 
this  warlike  system,  it  was,  after  a  pitched  battle  of  speeches, 
a  mere  street  fight  which  defied  the  monarchy. 

9* 


102  THE     RESTORATION. 


Cif        '-■     '■r     '     ^ 


» 

'M.:3DE   ^ERRE. 

Louis  XVIII.  had  ascended  his  throne,  and  the  vessel  of 
exile  was  bearing  Napoleon  away  towards  the  rock  of  St. 
Helena.  The  armies  of  Europe  had  sheathed  the  sword  of 
war.  They  were  tranquilly  encamped  upon  our  soil,  for 
the  second  lime  polluted  with  their  presence.  But  the  par- 
ties, for  a  time  repressed  by  the  stupor  of  invasion,  were 
about  to  renew  the  strife  on  the  parliamentary  arena. 

A  little  ambition,  a  little  hatred  and  a  little  revenge  com- 
pose the  basis  of  all  victorious  parties.  How  could  it  be 
expected  that  the  Chamber  of  1815,  rabidly  royalist,  should 
not  betake  itself  to  the  work  of  reaction  ?  How  expect  that 
there  would  not  be  a  struggle  on  the  part  of  the  Emigration 
against  the  wrecks  of  the  imperial  army,  of  the  province 
against  the  Court,  of  the  ancient  interests  against  the  new, 
of  the  spirit  of  locality  against  the  spirit  of  centralization, 
of  property  against  industry,  of  royalism  against  liberalism, 
of  the  altar  and  the  throne  against  philosophy  and  the  Rev- 
olution ?  This  struggle  was  inevitable,  imminent,  implaca- 
ble. '* 

They  were  men  of  another  age  the  most  of  those  depu- 
ties of  1815.  Wealthy  burgesses  or  petty  provincial  nobles, 
sequestered  in  their  manors,  or  in  their  drawing-rooms,  they 
knew  the  men  of  the  Empire  but  by  the  hatred  they  bore 
them,  and  the  acts  of  that  reign  but  by  the  exorbitance  of 
taxation  and  the  annual  cupping  of  the  conscription.  Full 
at  once  of  the  terrors  of  the  Revolution  and  the  prejudices 
of  the  Emigration,  superstitious,  unlettered,  obstinate,  they 
would  have  a  state  religion,  a  monarchy  without  constitution, 
without  peerage  and  without  judiciary  ;  but  not  without  pro- 
vincial institutions.  The  government  in  the  hands  of  the 
king,  the  administration  of  the  departments  in  the  hands  of 
the  wealthy  burgesses  and  the   nobility — such   was  their 


xM.     DE     SERRE.  103 

dream.  Men,  in  other  respects,  of  simple  and  respectable 
manners,  sincere  in  their  legitimist  and  religious  faith,  in- 
dependent by  the  habits  of  their  life,  by  position  of  fortune, 
by  pride  of  gentleman,  and  who  had  nothing  in  common  with 
the  servile  and  insipid  ministerialism  of  our  stockjobbing 
age. 

Kindled  by  its  passions,  intoxicated  by  a  triumph  as  com- 
plete as  it  was  unexpected,  a  Chamber  so  constituted  might 
be  expected  to  run  to  great  excesses,  in  the  tempestuous  and 
bloody  career  of  political  reactions ;  to  far  greater  than  it 
should,  no  doubt,  have  wished  itself. 

M.  de  Serre  appeared,  and  it  might  be  said  that  he  came 
just  in  the  nick,  and  that  it  was  time.  The  name  of  the 
king  ran  over  in  every  speech,  in  every  address,  in  every 
report.  The  cry  of  Vive  le  Roi  !  broke  forth  spontaneously, 
from  the  agitated  Chamber,  less  however  as  a  cry  of  love 
than  a  cry  of  war.  At  this  exclamation,  the  enraptured 
majority  clapped  hands  and  started  up  with  the  transports 
and  the  dizziness  of  delirium.  Yet  another  wave,  and  the 
torrent  of  reaction  had  swept  down  its  embankments,  rushed 
furiously  over  the  plains  and  buried  France  beneath  its  wa- 
ters. M.  de  Serre,  without  hesitation,  threw  himself  intre- 
pidly into  the  torrent  and  stopped  its  course. 

At  once  soldier  and  chief,  now  on  the  defensive,  now  on 
the  offensive,  he  multiplied  himself  and  might  be  said  to  be 
himself  alone  almost  an  army.  How  many  services  never 
to  be  forgotten  has  he  not  rendered  to  the  cause  of  liberty  ! 
With  what  bolts  of  eloquence  did  he  fulmine  against  the  re- 
establishment  of  confiscation,  against  the  violences  of  the 
directoral  committees,  against  the  extortions  of  taxation, 
against  the  tyranny  of  prevotal  courts,  against  the  infernal 
and  secret  organization  of  the  spy-system,  fraudulent  en- 
listments and  governmental  assassination  !  What  courage 
amid  what  dangers  !  what  elevated  reason  amid  what  frantic 
extravagances ! 

The  provincial  nobility,  whether  from  the  jealous  leaven 
of  that  spirit  of  opposition  which,  ever  since  the  feudal  times, 


104  T  II  E      R  E  S  T  O  R  A  T  I  O  N  . 

animated  it  heriditarily  against  the  Courtiers,  or  that  it  de- 
sired to  concentrate  the  forces  of  the  aristocracy  in  the  local 
administrations,  demanded  urgently,  under  a  popular  pre- 
text, the  election  by  two  degrees.  M.  de  Serre  baffled  this 
stratagem,  and  carried  the  direct  form  of  election  •  and  when 
in  1819,  the  charge  was  renewed  against  this  mode  of  elec- 
tion, de  Serre  defended  it  with  arguments  so  convincing  and 
an  eloquence  so  captivaj;ing  that  the  enthusiasm  of  his  very 
adversaries  burst  forth  in  acclamations. 

The  oratorical  career  of  M.  de  Serre  was  brief,  but  how 
richly  filled  up  !  What  energy  of  will !  what  power  of 
reasoning  !  what  force !  what  fulness,  what  variety  in  his 
discourses !  what  a  multitude  of  combats  !  what  a  succes- 
sion of  victories  !  How  he  pleads  with  ardor  against  the 
bankruptcy  orators  who,  to  annul  or  reduce  the  mortgage  of 
the  public  creditors,  stigmatized  the  origin  and  occasion  of 
their  titles  !  How  he  puts  to  shame  the  denouncers  of  the 
illustrious  Massena  !  How  he  braves  the  call  to  order,  for 
having  opposed  the  proposition  to  render  the  clergy  proprie- 
tary, to  endow  it  with  a  rent-charge  in  perpetuity  of  forty- 
two  millions,  to  restore  to  it  the  church  property  remaining 
unsold,  to  commit  to  it  public  instruction  of  all  degrees,  as 
also  the  civil  registers,  and  to  recast  in  the  same  mould 
the  constitution  of  Church  and  State !  How  he  seeks  to 
move,  where  he  cannot  convince  !  How  his  voice  softens, 
how  he  turns  to  invoke  pity,  when^  there  are  no  ears  for 
justice ! 

As  minister,  M.  de  Serre  continued  to  march  in  the  path 
of  progress.  His  code  of  the  press  was  a  measure  of  great 
liberality,  a  work  at  that  time  prodigiously  difficult  in  the 
elaboration  of  the  subject,  a  production  complete  in  the 
definition  of  the  offences,  in  the  forms  of  the  procedure 
and  the  articulation  of  the  penalties.  M.  Guizot,  without 
the  eloquence  and  comprehensiveness  of  de  Serre,  sustained 
him,  however,  honorably  in  that  admirable  discussion,  and 
this  noble  action  of  his  past  life  meiits  him  the  absolution 
of  many  a  fault.     Never,  since  the  establishment  of  our 


M.      DE      SERRE.  105 

representative  government,  in  any  debate,  has  any  minister 
soared  to  the  same  elevation  as  M.  de  Serre.  He  showed 
himself  alternately  a  statesman  in  the  political  consideration 
of  the  subject,  a  dialectitian  in  the  deduction  of  the  proofs, 
a  jurisconsult  in  the  graduation  of  the  penalties,  an  orator 
in  the  refutation  of  his  adversaries.  Wiser  than  the  attorney- 
generals  of  the  day,  he  maintained  the  reference  of  offences 
of  the  press  to  the  jury.  More  liberal  than  the  Opposition 
itself,  he  combatted  the  motion  of  Manuel  to  extend  the  in- 
violability to  written  opinions,  and  not  those  pronounced  in 
the  tribune.  How  many  beautiful  and  stirring  expressions 
dropped  at  that  period  from  de  Serre :  "  I  do  not  interdict 
the  deputy  the  right  of  being  a  writer."  And  this  :  "  Lib- 
erty is  no  less  necessary  to  the  moral  and  religious,  than  to 
the  political,  progression  of  the  people."  It  was  during 
this  discussion  that  de  Serre  having  said  that  all  majorities 
had  been  sound  :  "  And  the  Convention  too  ?"  cried  M.  de 
la  Bourdonnaie, — "  Yes,  sir,"  rejoined  de  Serre,  "  and  the 
Convention  too,  if  the  Convention  had  not  deliberated  with 
the  dagger  at  its  breast." 

Oh  !  what  would  be  the  indignation  and  pity  of  de  Serre, 
had  he  the  misfortune  of  living  under  our  regime  without 
liberty  because  it  is  without  principles,  without  popularity 
because  without  grandeur  ;  could  he  compare  the  temperate 
legislation  of  the  press,  under  the  king  of  1819, — king  by 
the  grace  of  God — with  the  violent  legislation  of  Septem- 
ber,  under  the  king  of  1841,  king  by  the  grace  of  the  Peo- 
ple ;  and  if  he  could  see  alongside  the  jury,  that  liberal  ju- 
dicatory of  the  country,  our  poor  petty  ministerial  peerage 
pronouncing,  upon  poor  paltry  proceedings,  its  poor  pitiful 
decrees. 

Confiscation  abashed,  crime  punished,  justice  reinstated, 
denunciations  stifled,  public  credit  restored,  feudalism  tram- 
pled down,  the  elections  purified,  the  right  of  petition  vindi- 
cated, parties  equipoised,  legislation  enlightened,  the  tribune 
free,  the  press  assured  :  such  were  the  labors  and  the  re- 
sults of  the  first  and  brilliant  period  of  the  parliamentary 


106  THE     RESTORATION. 

life  of  M.  de  Serre,  as  deputy,  as  president  of  the  Chamber, 
and  as  minister. 

But  behold  you,  all  of  a  sudden,  M.  de  Serre,  after  hav- 
ing been  the  most  vigorous  champion  of  liberty,  constitutes 
himself  fatally  the  liege-servant  of  power.  He  attacks 
what  he  had  defended.  He  burns  his  idol.  He  announces 
the  approaching  tempest ;  he  utters  from  the  topmast  a  cry 
of  distress,  and  clings  upon  the  shoals,  overhanging  the 
gulf  whereinto  the  election  law  was  drawing  the  monar- 
chy. His  energies  are  wasted,  and,  to  recruit  them,  he 
leaves  a  moment  the  parliamentary  scene.  Meanwhile,  his 
colleague,  M.  Pasquier,  wiihstood  the  onset  of  the  Opposi- 
tion,  but  in  retreating.  The  heavens  were  gloomy  and  the 
cloud  was  about  to  burst.  De  Serre  is  recalled  in  all  haste  ; 
he  returns,  he  rushes  desperately  into  the  strife.  He  changes 
the  ground  of  the  battle,  carries  the  war  with  the  victory 
into  the  camp  of  the  Liberals,  and  saves  the  monarchy. 

We  must  be  unjust  to  no  man.  The  Opposition  prosecut- 
ed its  trade  of  opposition.  Why  should  not  M.  de  Serre 
prosecute  his  of  minister  ? 

The  governments,  whose  basis  is  not  broad  and  national, 
are  sickly  bodies,  which  a  dose,  a  little  too  strong  of  liberty, 
kills  infallibly.  M.  de  Serre  was  the  responsible  adviser, 
the  political  physician,  of  an  infirm  royalty.  He  could  not 
kill  his  patient.  But  there  was  then  more  peril,  peril  of 
death  for  the  dynasty,  in  the  election  laws  of  1817,  than  in 
universal  suffrage  itself.  If  desired,  I  am  ready  to  prove  it. 
But  we  radicals  are  inclined  too  often  to  judge  our  adver- 
saries from  our  point  of  view,  and  take  it  ill,  not  that  they 
do  not  adopt  our  principles,  but  that  they  act,  or  that  they 
speak  according  to  their  own.  It  is  as  if  a  general  should 
blame  the  enemy  he  attacks,  for  repulsing  him.  To  judge 
M.  de  Serre  impartially,  he  must  be  viewed  not  from  our 
position,  but  from  his.  M.  de  Serre  was  emigrant,  royalist, 
aristocrat,  and  minister.  When  there  was  a  reaction  of  roy- 
alty against  liberty,  he  defended  liberty,  through  liberalism, 
not  republicanism.     When  there  was  a  reaction  of  liberty 


^  M.     DESERRE.       .  107 

against  royalty,  he  defended  royalty  through  loyalty,  not 
servility.  In  both  these  cases  he  was  quite  consistent.  The 
character  of  M.  de  Serre  would  permit  no  half-way  meas- 
ures with  either  his  friends  or  his  enemies.  Once,  with  the 
throne  at  his  back,  he  began  to  oppose  with  a  lofty  and  des- 
perate vigor  the  coalition  of  parties,  the  democracy  of  elec- 
tions, and  the  menaces  of  the  press. 

M.  Pasquier  was  of  an  adroit  and  polished  address.  That 
of  M.  de  Serre  was  frank  and  unceremonious.  He  dis- 
dained to  disguise  himself  under  the  artifices  of  language. 
He  went  right  to  the  adversary,  and  dealt  him  a  blow  of  his 
club.  I  was  present  and  can  imagine  I  see  him  still,  when 
turning  to  the  Opposition  and  looking  it  fixedly  between  the 
eyes,  he  said  :  "  I  have  seen  through  you,  I  have  penetrated 
your  designs,  I  have  unmasked  you."  The  Opposition  could 
scarce  restrain  its  fury.  "  Whatever  you  may  have  done 
for  the  new  order  of  interests,"  said  he  on  another  occasion 
to  the  deputies  of  the  Extreme  Left,  "  you  have  not  done 
more  than  I  have  !"     And  this  was  perfectly  true. 

The  expositions  of  M.  de  Serre  were  at  least  equal  to  his 
speeches.  What  a  master  touch  in  this  picture  of  the  lib- 
erty of  the  press  in  the  United  States  and  in  England  ! 

"  Suppose  a  population  complexionally  calm  and  cold, 
scattered  over  a  vast  territory,  surrounded  by  the  ocean  and 
the  desert,  absorbed  in  the  occupations  of  agriculture  and 
trade,  as  yet  independent  of  the  wants  of  the  intellect  and 
the  torments  of  ambition.  Divide  this  population  into  a 
number  of  small  States  more  or  less  democratic,  weakly 
constituted,  without  distinction  or  rank,  and  you  will  com- 
prehend how  the  licentiousness  of  the  press  may  there  be 
tolerable ;  how  it  may  be  even  a  useful  instrument  of  de- 
mocratic government,  a  stimulant  to  wrest  the  individual 
citizens  from  their  domestic  concerns,  and  bring  them  to  the 
discussion  of  the  great  interests  of  the  public." 

"  Suppose  elsewhere  a  kingdom  wherein  time  has  accu- 
mulated upon  a  haughty  aristocracy,  influence,  dignities, 
riches  and  possessions  almost  kingly.     It  is  requisite  that 


108  THE     RESTORATION. 

there  be  a  check  upon  the  pride  of  the  great ;  they  must  be 
reminded  constantly  what  they  owe  to  the  throne  and  to  the 
people  ;  it  must  be  inculcated  upon  them  day  by  day  that 
influence  can  be  retained  but  as  it  has  been  acquired,  by 
science  and  courage,  by  patriotism  and  public  services. 
The  newspapers  and  even  their  abuse  are  admirable  for  this 
purpose.  Add  that  this  aristocracy  is  not  an  isolated  body 
in  the  State  ;  that  below  it,  descending  and  widening  are 
several  successive  degrees ;  that  these  degrees  are  firmly 
linked,  indissolubly  welded  into  one  simple  hierarchy ;  that 
by  this  all  is  moved,  government,  justice  civil  and  criminal, 
administration,  police ;  then  be  not  astonished  that  a  society 
thus  constructed  survives  the  agitation  of  the  periodical 
press." 

M.  de  Serre  had  an  organizing  genius.  He  was  alarmed 
at  the  dissolvent  progress  of  individualism.  He  wished, 
like  Napoleon,  to  institute  classes,  corporations,  cities,  coun- 
ter-weights, a  resisting  system  of  political  forces.  He  was 
not  aristocratic  by  prejudice  or  caste,  by  opposition  or  by 
pride ;  but  he  seemed  possessed  by  the  necessity  of  a  hie- 
rarchical discipline,  an  ascending  and  descending  classifica- 
tion of  Chambers,  and  of  society  itself.  Happily,  societies 
do  not- suffer  themselves  to  be  thus  shaped  by  the  capricious 
finger  of  the  legislator.  France  has  the"  manners  of  equal- 
ity ;  it  has  a  repugnance,  quite  as  much  from  temperament 
as  wisdom,  to  the  stiff  and  intolerant  hierarchies  of  social 
condition  and  political  power. 

Educated  in  the  school  of  German  philosophy,  M.  de 
Serre  brought  into  the  discussion  of  affairs,  the  processes  of 
a  method  profound  without  being  hollow,  ingenious  without 
being  subtle.  He  Ipved  to  go  back  to  the  sources  of  the 
subject,  and  he  was  admirable  in  his  historical  expositions. 
He  commented  learnedly  the  antinomies  of  legislation.  He 
treated  all  topics  civil,  political,  military,  fiscal,  religious, 
with  a  singular  precision  of  view  and  great  soundness  of 
doctrine.  Customs,  Budget,  Registry,  Press,  personal  Lib- 
erty, Petitions,  Chamber  rules,  Elections,  Pensions,  Public 


M.     DE     SERRE.  109 

Instruction,  Council  of  State,  Foreign  Affairs,  he  spoke  upon 
all  these  questions,  nor  quitted  them  without  marking  his 
steps  with  trains  of  light.  By  his  manner  of  stating  the  di- 
visions of  his  discourse,  in  the  firmness  of  his  progressions, 
and  the  catenation  substantial  and  sustained  of  his  reason- 
ings, you  at  once  recognized  the  march  of  a  superior  mind. 
M.  Guizot  has  a  good  deal  of  this  manner. 

M.  de  Serre  was  tall  and  meagre  of  body.  He  had  a 
high  and  prominent  forehead,  lank  hair,  a  lively  eye,  the 
pendant  lips  and  anxious  physiognomy  of  a  man  of  strong 
passions.  He  stammered  in  beginning  to  speak,  and  you  saw 
by  the  working  of  his  temples  that  the  ideas  amassed  slowly 
and  elaborated  themselves  with  effort  in  his  brain.  But  by 
little  and  little  they  became  arranged,  they  made  headway, 
and  rolled  forth  in  a  compact  and  marvellous  order.  He 
plied,  he  palpitated  beneath  their  weight  and  flung  them 
abroad  in  magnificent  images  and  expressions  picturesque 
and  creative.  I  will  mention  but  a  few.  of  these  sayings,  or 
rather  thoughts  which  escaped  him  in  such  vivid  abundance. 
— "  In  proportion  as  the  people  unlearn  to  obey,  the  minis- 
ter unlearns  to  govern." 

— "  A  well-ordered  society  is  the  fairest  temple  that  can  be 
erected  to  the  Eternal." 

— "  Extraordmary  tribunals  take  badly  in  France." 
— "  If  ministers  abused  their  power,  there  would  tlien  be  no 
difficulty  in  discovering  the  laws  of  responsibility,  and  the 
modes  of  impeachment." 

— "  Young  men  of  -the  schools,  you  have  to  learn  science 
and  wisdom,  and  you  affect  to  guarantee  us  science  and  wis- 
dom, and  you  pretend  to  judge  your  masters  and  the  supe- 
riors of  your  masters  !" 

— "  If  stripped  of  the  moss  of  age,  the  roots  of  all  rights 
could  be  laid  bare  to  the  eye,  would  they  be  found  pure  of 
all  usurpation,  of  all  stain  1" 

— "  Law  is  the  relation  of  beings  to  each  other  ;  jurispru- 
dence is  the  expression  of  those  relations." 

But  if  by  the  flash  of  thought,  by  the  skill  of  coloring,  by 

10 


110  THE     RESTORATION. 

the  nerve  and  vehemence  of  discourse,  M.  de  Serre  was  the 
most  eloquent  man  of  the  Restoration ;  he  fell  occasion- 
ally, like  the  greatest  orators,  into  the  natural  extravagan- 
cies of  a  fervid  and  impetuous  delivery.  He  uttered  his 
famous  NEVER,  which  he  has  been  so  much  reproached  for, 
and  has  sufficiently  repented. 

M.  de  Serre  was,  during  his  later  years,  the  target  of  the 
Opposition.  It  is  against  this  lofty  genius,  against  this  pow- 
erful head  (to  speak  the  language  of  Benjamin  Constant) 
that  the  Opposition  directed  its  shafts.  It  harassed  this 
lion  of  the  ministry.  It  pulled  him  by  the  mane  and  pierced 
him  with  its  sharpest  javelins.  It  would  have  wished  to  be 
able  to  clip  off  his  claws  and  confine  himr  in  an  iron  cage. 
Foy,  Benjamin  Constant,  Manuel,  Chauvelin,  hovered  inces-* 
santly  about  this  formidable  foe,  without  letting  him  breathe 
an  instant ;  and  Casimir-Perier,  who,  become  minister, 
could  not  suffer  that  he  was  handled  so  mildly,  and  who 
cried  with  a  tone  of  command  to  his  band  of  servile  depu- 
ties  :  "  Come,  come  then  !  up,  gentlemen,  up  !"  permitted 
himself  against  de  Serre  the  most  extraordinary  violence  of 
gesture  and  language. 

Were  it  allowed  me  to  forget  that  I  here  draw  but  an 
oratorical  portrait,  I  would  say  that  M.  de  Serre  was  a  good 
man,  courageous,  sincere,  upright,  adorned  with  all  the  do- 
mestic virtues,  too  tender-hearted  perhaps  !  The  tribune 
wastes  rapidly  those  nervous  organizations.  General  Foy 
was  affected  in  the  heart,  Casimir-Perier  in  the  liver,  and 
de  Serre  in  the  brain.  This  exquisiteness  of  sensibility  gives 
perfection  no  doubt  to  the  orator,  but  death  to  the  man. 

After  the  Court  party  had  used  M.  de  Serre  to  beat  down 
the  electoral  law,  and  then  the  press,  he  was  stripped  of  the 
seals  and  the  simar  and  sent  into  the  brilliant  exile  of  an 
embassy,  to  meditate  upon  the  nothingness  of  parliamentajy 
triumphs.  This  man,  who  had  been  president  of  the  Cham- 
ber, and  was  the  most  eloquent  of  its  orators,  had  not  credit 
enough  to  obtain  a  re-election  as  deputy.  He  was  thought 
too  royalist  by  the  liberals,  and  too  liberal  by  the  royalists. 


M.      DE      S  ERRE.  Ill 

Besides,  most  burgess  electors  do  not  like  men  of  intellectual 
superiority.  Genius  overshadows,  and,  by  a  sort  of  instinct, 
mediocrity  assimilates  itself.  To  please  the  multitude,  to 
remain  their  man,  you  must  make  yourself  all  things  to  all ; 
not  do  too  much  harm  nor  too  much  good  ;  not  swim  right 
in  the  current,  but  drift  aside  like  scum,  upon  the  shore  of 
party  ;  bury  your  head  between  your  shoulders,  squat  in  a 
corner  so  as  not  to  see  the  setting,  but  so  as  to  hail  the  ris- 
ing sun  ;  live  the  animal  life  of  ministerial  dinners  and 
Court  soirees.     Be  this,  and  you  will  be  always  deputy ! 

M.  de  Serre  took  violently  to  heart  this  his  electoral  repu- 
diation. He  got  deranged,  and  his  eyes  turned  towards  that 
tribune  of  France  still  resounding  with  the  echoes  of  his 
eloquence  so  much  regretted,  he  died. 

Vanity  of  reputations !  Who  has  any  remembrance  to- 
day of  M.  de  Serre  ?  Vanity  of  his  painter  !  Who  would 
know  but  for  me,  if  I  had  not  reproduced  his  lineaments, 
his  physiognomy,  his  strong  and  masculine  eloquence,  if  I 
had  not  thrown  him  upon  the  canvass  and  restored  him  to 
the  light,  who  would  know,  in  this  oblivious  age  of  ours, 
that  M.  de  Serre  lived,  crushed  a  civil  war,  saved  the  mon- 
archy, was  a  great  orator — so  great  that,  among  the  princes 
of  the  modern  tribune,  he  could  be  compared  but  to  Ber- 
ryer,  if  Berry er  were  comparable  to  any  one  ! 


112  THE      RESTORATION. 


GENERAL  FOY. 


The  public,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Restoration, 
were  but  imperfectly  acquainted  with  the  full  import  of  tlie 
Charter  of  1814,  copied  after  the  English  constitution,  with 
the  metaphysical  fiction  of  its  trinity  of  members,  its  double 
Chambers,  the  vain  responsibility  of  its  ministers  and  the 
lying  balance  of  its  powers.  The  Doctrinarians  were  not 
heard  out  of  the  sanctuary  of  their  little  chapel.  Hatred 
of  the  foreigner,  whose  intolerable  yoke  weighed  upon  our 
territory,  hatred  of  the  aristocracy,  who  were  constantly, 
chafing  the  vanity  of  the  burgess  class  and  menacing  the 
new  interests  established  by  the  Revolution — these  were  the 
most  general  sentiments  then  pervading  the  nation. 

General  Foy  made  his  entrance  into  the  Chambers  with 
.this  twofold  hatred  at  heart.  When,  mounting  for  the  first 
time  the  tribune,  he  dropped  this  expression  :  "  France  has 
still  an  echo  for  the  words  honor  and  country,"  the  national 
pride  was  excited,  and  the  tears  flowed  from  the  eyes  of  all 
the  old  warriors  of  the  Empire.  It  seemed  to  them  as  if 
they  had  heard  a  war-cry  raised  against  the  foreigner.  The 
speeches  of  Foy  owed  their  extraordinary  success  to  the 
same  cause  as  the  songs  of  Beranger  and  the  pamphlets  of 
Pgul-Louis  Courier.  They  were  all  three  possessed  of 
exquisite  sehse,  a  lively  and  rare  intelligence,  and  the  wants 
of  their  epoch.  They  had  all  the  gift  of  speaking  to  the  peo- 
ple its  language  of  the  moment ;  for  the  people,  according 
to  the  period,  has  more  than  one  tongue  at  its  disposal. 

It  was  by  labor  agricultural,  industrial,  scientific  and  mil- 


n  E  N  E  R  A  li      F  O  Y  .  113 

itary,  that  the  new  generation  had  elevated  itself  upon  the 
ruins  of  aristocratical  idleness.  Accordingly,  when  Gen- 
eral Foy  overwhelmed  with  his  sarcasms  the  gentlemen  of 
the  Court  and  the  Emigration,  entire  France  was  unani- 
mous in  applause.  It  is  that  Foy,  like  Poul-Louis,  and  Be- 
ranger,  had  touched  the  fibre  of  the  national  heart  which 
vibrated  most  sensitively  at  the  time.  He  was  in  unison 
with  it. 

After  so  many  lawyer  orators,  all  very  nearly  cast  in  the 
same  mould,  the  tribune  had  at  length  obtained  its  military 
orator.  The  eclat  and  picquancy  of  this  novelty,  with  the 
influence  of  military  valor  upon  all  Frenchmen,  even  un- 
consciously to  themselves,  made  General  Foy  dear  to  the 
Opposition,  without  being  disagreeable  to  the  Emigration,  not- 
withstanding his  attacks. 

Nothing  more  was  needed  to  encircle  General  Foy,  from 
the  moment  of  his  first  appearance  on  the  parliamentary 
stage,  with  that  brilliant  renown  which  attended  him  to  the 
grave.  But  posterity  will  not  ratify  the  too  precipitate  judg- 
ment of  contemporaries.  M.  de  Serre  has  been,  under,  the 
Restoration,  the  eagle  of  the  tribune.  Foy  is  only  second  to 
liim.     What  in  fact  is  an  orator  who  does  not  extemporize  ? 

The  speeches  of  General  Foy  do  not  equal  in  vigor  of 
thought,  in  imagery  of  style,  in  logical  connection,  in  vehe- 
mence, in  depth,  in  point,  those  of  Royer-CoUard  and  Ben- 
jamin  Constant.  They  are  marred  by  the  tinselry  of  a  false 
rhetoric,  and  are  really  no  better  than  school-boy  amplifica- 
tions in  comparison  with  the  famous  harangues  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  These  discourses  are  moreover  confined  to  the 
narrow  circle  of  a  bastard  constitutionalism.  They  are 
just  as  liberal  as  the  epoch,  but  do  not  advance  beyond  it. 
They  do  not  look  enough  into  the  future.  They  do  not  suf- 
ficiently take  for  what  they  are,  for  what  they  are  worth, 
the  fictions  of  that  absurd  representation,  the  existence  of 
which  posterity  will  one  day  call  in  doubt ;  which  limps  and 
dislocates  itself  at  every  step,  and  is  unable  to  stand  the  test 
either  of  logic  or  of  business.     They  are  stricken  with  that 


114  THE     RESTORATION. 

incurable  impotence  which  paralyzes  all  the  orators  of  our 
monopoly  legislatures.     They  want  genius. 

But  the  profundity  of  thought,  the  boldness  of  speculation, 
the  veritude  of  principles,  the  beauty  of  form,  the  science  of 
composition,  are  appreciated  but  by  a  few  connoisseurs. 
General  Foy  had  that  sort  of  splendor  mixed  with  the  false 
and  the  true,  which  was  calculated  to  dazzle  the  multitude  of 
an  assembly.  Men  of  intellect  themselves,  on  seeing  the 
crowd  pass,  excited  by  the  common  enthusiasm,  mingled 
with  it  and  accompanied  the  triumphal  car.  But,  after  the 
procession  comes  the  critic,  who  calls  gold  what  is  gold, 
and  tinsel  what  is  tinsel,  and  who  restores  men  and  things 
to  their  appropriate  places. 

A  certain  person  whom  no  one  now  reads,  has  had  his 
speeches  gilt-edged,  printed  upon  vellum  to  the  number  of 
ten  thousand  copies,  and  lauded  by  his  panegyrists  as  equal 
to  the  orations  of  Cicero  and  Demosthenes.  To  a  certain 
other  person,  or  even  if  you  will,  to  General  Foy,  a  marble 
cenotaph  has  by  subscription  been  erected,  as  to  the  god  of 
eloquence.  Scarcely  could  the  purse  of  his  friends  afford 
to-day  to  plant  over  him  a  wooden  cross. 

General  Foy  had  the  exterior,  the  attitude  and  the  ges- 
tures of  the  orator,  a  prodigious  memory,  a  clear  voice, 
eyes  beaming  with  intellect,  and  a  turn  of  head  which  might 
be  described  as  chivalrous.  His  prominent  forehead,  tossed 
backward,  lightened  with  enthusiasm,  or  writhed  with 
wrath.  He  shook  the  tribune,  and  had  something  of  the  sibyl 
on  her  tripod.  He  checked  himself,  so  to  say,  heroically  in 
the  impetuosity  of  argument,  and  foamed  without  contortion,  I 
had  well  nigh  said,  with  grac^  Frequently  he  was  seen 
to  leave  all  of  a  sudden  his  seat,  and  scale  the  tribune  as  if 
he  was  marching  to  victory.  Mounted,  he  launched  forth 
his  words  with  an  air  of  command,  like  another  Conde 
hurling  his  constable's-staff  over  the  redoubts  of  the  enemy. 

General  Foy  was  not  accustomed  to  improvisate  his  set 
discourses.  A  man  over  forty  years  of  age  does  not  learn 
extemporization,  any  more  than  swimming,  horsemanship, 


GENERAL      FOY.  115 

or  music.     The  tribune  has,  so  to  speak,  its  fingering  like 
the  piano.     The  French  speech  especially,  so  correct,  so 
surcliarged  with  incisives,  so  interrupted  with  ablatives,  so 
reserved,  so  prudish,  requires  to  be  elaborated  and  practised 
early.    Accordingly  the  only  speakers  commonly  unprepared 
are  the   lawyers,   or  the  professors,   or   the    drawing-room 
babblers,   those   men  with  woman  tongue.     To  supply   the 
deficiency  of  his  oratorical  education.  General  Foy  used  to 
meditate   laboriously  his  harangues.      He  could  formulize 
and   distribute   in  his  capacious  memory  their  whole   plan 
and   proportions.     He  disposed   his   exordiums,  classed   his 
facts,   prepared    his   theses,    and  sketched   his    perorations. 
Then  behold  him  ascend  the   tribune,  and,   master  of  his 
subject,  fecundated  by  study  and  inspiration,  he  gave  him- 
self up  to  the  current  of  his  thought.     His   head  butts,  his 
discourse  warms,  distends,  dilates,  takes  consistence,  form, 
color.     He  knows  what  he  is  going  to  say,  but  not  how  he 
is  going  to  say  it.     He  sees  the  end,  but  not  by  what  route 
he  is   to  gain  it.      He   has   his  hands   full   of  arguments, 
images  and  flowers,  and   according   as  they  present  them- 
selves, he   takes,  selects,  and  assorts  them  into  the   garland 
of  his  eloquence.     It  is  neither  the  coldness  of  reading,  nor 
the  monotonous  psalmodizing  of  recitation.     It  is  a   mixed 
procedure,  whereby  the  orator,  at  once  hermit  and  enthusi- 
ast, improvisator  and   writer,  chains  his  own  frenzy  without 
ceasing  to  be  free,  forgets  and  remembers,  bursts  the  thread 
of  his  discourse,  and  knots,  but  to  sunder  it  again  and  still 
recover  it  without  the  least  disconcertion  ;  blends  the  sallies, 
the   incidents,   the   surprises,  the   picturesque   of  language, 
with   reflexion,   sequence   and   thought,   and   draws   his  re- 
sources and  iiis  power  alike  from   the  premeditated  and  the 
unforeseen,  from  the  vigorous  precision  of  art  and  the  sim- 
pie  graces  of  nature.     To  be  an  orator  after  this  fashion  is 
not  a  thing  to  be  had  by  a  wish  ;   for  it  requires  memory, 
invention,   originality  and  taste,  the  ease  of  the   gentleman 
and  the  erudition  of  the  scholar— qualities  exclusive  of  each 
other  most  commonly. 

9* 


116  THE      RESTORATION.^ 

This  method  of  General  Foy,  and  which  became  perhaps 
but  him  alone,  is  not  without  advantage.  In  the  first  place, 
parliamentary  assemblies  are  flattered  by  the  trouble  you 
take  to  please  them.  Again,  the  limits  of  the  discourse 
beins:  thus  demarcated  in  advance,  the  orator  is  not  liable 
to  lose  himself  in  the  endless  space  of  divagation.  He  does 
not  present  himself  in  slippers  and  morning-gown  on  the 
hustings,  and  keep  stringing  words  together  until  the  idea 
offers,  as  if  the  auditors  were  present  for  the  mere  purpose 
of  waiting  upon  you  ! 

The  most  brilliant  sayings  of  General  Foy  were  but 
points  kept  in  reserve,  set  in  framing  as  it  were,  for  the 
nonce.  With  what  art  he  could  introduce  a  preconcerted 
situation,  a  dramatic  incident,  a  striking  figure,  a  happy 
allusion  !  With  what  pertinence,  for  example,  he  brings  into 
a  discussion  on  the  budget,  the  portrait  of  Marshal  Gouvian 
Saint-Cyr,  drawn  beforehand,  so  admirably  drawn  ! 

But  if  the  longer  discourses  of  General  Foy,  despite  the 
perfect  exposition  of  the  subject,  the  perspicuity  of  the  dic- 
tion and  abundance  of  the  arguments,  are  not  without  faults  ; 
if  they  may  be  reproached  with  betraying  somewhat  of  the 
compass,  being  a  little  too  elaborate,  with  smelling  too  much 
of  the  lamp,  I  should  not  say  the  same  of  his  extempora- 
neous efforts  w^hich  flowed  with  equal  facility  and  brevity. 
How  natural  !  what  vivid  and  powerful  irony  !  what  in- 
credible felicity  of  retort !  and  this  on  all  occasions,  at  each 
step,  at  every  interruption,  and  always  the  exact,  the  deci- 
sive word  !  To  some  who  reproached  him  with  regretting 
the  tri-colored  .cockade  : 

"  Ah  !  he  said,  it  surely  would  not  be  the  shades  of 
Philippe-Auguste  and  of  Henry  IV.  that  should  feel  indig- 
nant, in  their  tombs,  to  behold  the  jleurs-de-lis  of  Bouvines 
and  of  Ivry  on  the  banner  of  Austerlitz." 

To  those  who  asked  him  tauntingly  :  What  then  do  you 
call  the  aristocracy  ? 

"  The  aristocracy  !  I  shall  tell  you  :  the  aristocracy  is 
the  league,  the  coalition  of  those  who  would  consume  with- 


GENERAL     FOY.  117 

out  producing,  live  without  laboring,  possess  themselves  of 
all  the  public  offices  without  being  qualified  to  fill  them, 
seize  upon  all  the  honors  of  the  state  without  having  merited 
any — this  is  the  aristocracy  !" 

To  those  who  cried  :  Adjourn. !  adjourn  ! — "  You  natur- 
ally wish  adjournments,  and  not  truths.  The  truths  swamp 
you." 

To  a  fellow  who  said  to  him  :  Send  your  foreign  news  to 
the  Bourse : 

"  I  know  nothing  of  the  gamblings  of  the  Bourse  ;  I 
only  speculate  in  the  rise  of  the  national  honor  !" 

To  certain  deputies  who  pretended  that  the  commission  of 
censorship  had  been  placed  under  half-pay  :  "  If  this  be  true, 
1  desire  that  the  commission  be  treated  as  the  half-pay  offi- 
cers are  for  two  years  back.  I  desire  it  be  never  recalled 
into  service." 

To  ministers  who  defended  the  ludicrous  extravagance 
and  sinecures  of  the  department  of  foreign  affairs  :  "  Ac- 
quaint us  then  with  those  diplomats  of  yours,  who  have 
served  neither  before,  nor  after,  nor  during  our  heroic  revo- 
lution ;  your  pensions  to  this  man  for  writing  a  book,  to 
the  other,  not  to  write  one  ;  your  physicians  who  have  never 
had  a  patient  to  attend  ;  your  historiographers  with  no  his- 
tory to  record ;  your  sketchers  who  know  of  no  other  land- 
scape to  draw  than  the  kitchen-garden  of  Wagram." 

Speaking  of  M.  de  Serre,  a  renegade  to  liberalism : 
"  There  are  in  politics  situations  so  degraded  that  they  cease 
to  go  for  anything  in  any  division  of  opinion." 

Directly  addressing  de  Serre,  keeper  of  the  seals :  "  As 
sole  vengeance,  as  sole  punishment,  I  condemn  you,  sir,  to 
cast  your  eyes,  as  you  leave  this  hall,  upon  the  statues  of 
d'Hopital  and  Dagesseau  !" 

This  oratorical  apostrophe  is  of  the  highest  beauty. 

They  were  proud  times  compared  with  ours,  those  limes 
of  the  Opposition  of  fifteen  years  since,  times  never  to  re- 
turn !  The  Carbonari  had  not  yet  quitted  thejr  stalls  and 
cellars,  to  revel  in  the  orgies  of  power.     The  deputies  of 


118  THE     RESTORATION. 

the  Left  had  not  yet  forsworn  their  oaths,  had  not  basely  sac- 
rificed democracy  to  dastardly  concessions,  to  disgraceful 
lionors  or  womanish  fears.  People  then  were  in  the  inno- 
cence of  early  illusions.  They  put  faith  in  the  probity  of 
politicians.  You  did  not  see  under  the  garb  of  a  colleague  a 
hand  preparing  to  betray  you,  a  dagger  ready  to  pierce  you. 
The  deputies  of  the  Opposition  had  all  but  one  voice,  one  soul, 
one  sentiment.  They  watched,  all  over  each,  and  each  over 
all.  Always  booted  and  spurred,  always  on  the  breach, 
beaten  on  one  side,  rallying  themselves  on  the  other,  and 
never  despairing  of  their  little  band,  of  liberty  or  the  future. 
Systematically  organized,  they  had  their  chiefs,  their  ad- 
vanced guards,  their  flank  and  main  armies,  their  plan  of  at- 
tack and  defence,  their  password.  France  observed  them 
with  eyes  and  heart,  and  attended  their  struggles  with  ap- 
plauses and  palms.  There  was,  it  must  be  repeated,  some 
honor  in  being  then  deputy.  It  was  a  great  one  to  be  an 
orator,  greater  than  to  have  gained  victories — for  formerly 
there  were  victories  and  heroes  by  the  hundred.  But  to- 
day to  be  a  deputy  is  so  small  a  matter !  To  be  a  peer  is 
still  less,  much  less.  We  have  seen  so  many  mountebanks 
gambol  on  the  trestle  of  the  Representative !  In  vain  do 
our  polichinellos  now  play  their  antics;  the  people  turn  away 
disgusted  and  seek  other  amusements. 

General  Foy,  for  his  part,  took  up  his  representative 
duties  in  earnest,  and  studied  them  day  and  night.  He  col- 
lated assiduously  the  documents  and  reports,  the  ordinances 
and  the  laws.  He  dictated,  took  notes,  analyzed  his  im- 
mense reading,  culling  thus  the  flower  of  each  subject  where- 
from  to  compose  his  honey.  He  did  not  disdain  to  descend 
into  the  labyrinth  of  our  financial  laws.  He  conned  our 
voluminous  budget,  chapter  by  chapter,  article  by  article, 
with  the  dry  and  minute  patience  of  an  office  clerk.  Nothing 
escaped  his  amazing  sagacity.  Equally  attentive  to  the  de- 
tails of  execution  and  the  spirit  of  the  rules,  he  investigated 
the  occasion  of  the  expenditures,  calculated  the  accounts, 
verified  the  figures,  and  decomposed  the  entire  elements  of 


GENERAL     FOY.  119 

each  department  of  service.  He  saw  into  all,  examined 
all,  discussed  all.  Ecclesiastical  law,  civil  law,  procedure 
even,  he  must  needs  understand.  Loans,  rents,  taxes,  civil 
list,  press,  public  instruction,  internal  administration,  foreign 
affairs,  nothing  appertaining  to  those  questions  so  diverse 
and  so  difficult  found  him  unprepared.  He  was  a  man  of./ 
iron,  one  of  those  men  of  the  Napoleonian  school,  who  went  to 
the  conquest  of  liberty  with  the  same  pace  that  they  marched 
to  the  conquest  of  the  world,  with  erect  brow  and  resolute 
eye,  without  fear  of  obstacles  or  doubt  of  victory  ;  who  sac- 
rifice their  days,  their  nights,  their  fortunes,  their  health, 
their  existence  to  duty  ;  who  cling,  as  if  by  cramps,  to  what- 
ever is  most  difficult  in  each  subject,  who  never  flag,  who 
live,  and  who  die  of  the  energy  of  their  will ! 

But  what  evinces  especially  the  superior  sense  of  General 
Foy,  is  the  bloody  struggle,  the  returning  struggle  of  every 
day,  which  he  maintained  to  prevent  the  alteration  of  the 
electoral  law.  The  electoral  law  !  this  in  effect  is  the  whole 
government,  the  whole  State,  the  whole  Constitution.  I 
might  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  is  in  the  country 
no  other  political  law,  or  if  you  will,  in  other  words,  that  it 
contains  all  other  laws,  since  it  is  the  mother  law  of  all. 
The  Constitution  is  society  at  rest.  The  electoral  law 
is  society  in  action.  Tell  me  who  are  your  electors, 
and  I  will  tell  you  what  is  your  government.  If  they  be 
place-holders,  you  will  have  a  despotism.  If  the  wealthy 
proprietors,  you  will  have  an  oligarchy.  With  the  suffrage 
universal,  you  will  have  a  democratic  government. 

General  Foy  felt  instinctively  that  the  electoral  law  of 
qualification  would  infallibly  bring  the  government  into 
the  hands  of  the  mercantile  and  moneyed  class.  He  labored, 
without  intending  it,  for  the  ignoble  triumph  of  the  every- 
one-fo^'-himself  principle.  In  history,  however,  we  see 
but  the  people  and  the  aristocracy  who  have  accomplished 
great  things.  The  wealthy  burgess  class  never  rise  above 
the  altitude  of  the  breeches  pocket.     A  burgess  regime, 


120  THE     RESTORATION. 

without  liberty  and  without  glory,  I   much  doubt  if  Foy, 
while  subserving  it,  would  have  greatly  relished. 

To  what  end,  for  the  rest,  so  many  fine  speeches 
about  the  simple  vote  and  the  double  vote  !  Is  it  that  in 
the  assemblies  of  a  monopoly  representation.  Eloquence, 
that  daughter  of  heaven,  has  ever  cured  a  corrupted  heart 
or  rectified  a  perverted  intellect  ?  Is  it  that  it  is  ever  law 
that  governs  the  world — and  not  the  unforeseen  ?  Who 
would  have  said,  three  days  before  the  25th  of  July,  that  a 
coup-cCetat  would  demolish  the  Constitution,  and  three  days 
after,  that  a  popular  insurrection  should  subvert  the  mon- 
archy ?  Eloquence  produces  at  most  the  efiect  of  the  drum 
which  beats  the  charge ;  but  it  is  the  musketry  and  cannon- 
shot  that  decides  the  victory. 

A  noble  heart  was  that  of  General  Foy,  a  heart  full  of 
lofty  sentiments  of  patriotism  and  national  independence,  a 
heroic  heart,  loving  glory,  not  for  himself,  not  for  its  own 
sake,  but  for  that  of  his  country,  as  it  was  loved  at  Austerlitz, 
as  it  was  loved  in  the  days  so  pure  of  the  dawning  repub- 
lic !  Never  had  the  army,  that  pearl  of  our  national  diadem, 
in  the  parliamentary  lists,  a  more  brilliant  knight.  They 
have  the  vv^eight  of  authority,  those  men  who  talk  of  war, 
while  exhibiting  a  breast  covered  with  scars  and  arms  fur- 
rowed by  the  bullets  of  the  enemy  ! 

It  is  reported  that  his  private  life  deserved  all  admiration, 
the  life  of  a  soldier  and  a  citizen,^  tender  and  blameless  in 
his  family  affections,  devoted  to  his  friends,  simple  and  stu- 
dious, upright,  guileless,  disinterested,  and  worthy,  like  the 
great  men  of  antiquity,  to  be  written  by  another  Plutarch. 

There  is  in  the  discourses  of  General  Foy  I  know  not 
what  of  chaste  and  attractive,  I  know  not  what  odor  of 
virtue,  what  grace  of  the  heart  which,  in  the  orator,  makes 
us  love  the  man  :  you  see,  you  feel  that  in  speaking,  his 
soul  is  upon  his  lips. 

But  they  will  open  no  more,  those  eloquent  lips !  the 
flame  of  eloquence  has  consumed  them.  Yes,  the  tribune  is 
death  to  the  conscientious  orator.     He  has  no  rest  by  day 


GENERAL     1'  O  Y  .  121 

and  no  sleep  by  night.  He  lives  but  a  life  of  agitation  and 
excitement.  The  action  of  the  organs  is  suspended  or  pre- 
cipitated. The  head  turns  gray  and  the  hands  are  tremu- 
lous, the  heart  contracts,  dilates  and  breaks. 

Vainly  have  I  postponed,  I  find  myself  obliged  to  meet 
a  question  of  political  physiology  which  I  have  proposed 
myself  a  hundred  times.  Had  Louis  XVIII.  on  his  return 
from  Gand,  offered  General  Foy  the  governorship  of  a  prov- 
ince, who  can  say  that  General  Foy  would  have  refused 
it,  and  if  not,  what  would  have  become  of  all  that  tempest 
of  eloquence?  not  even  mere  wind.  How  many  have  we 
not  witnessed,  in  the  Chamber  of  1816,  and  out  of  it,  of  this 
kind  of  liberals,  and  among  the  most  ardent  who  were  such 
only  for  the  nonce,  the  parvenue  nobility  of  Napoleon, 
because  they  were  stupidly  ashamed  of  being  branded  on 
the  forehead  with  the  original  sin  of  low  birth.  The  pro- 
pensity to  please  the  matster  has  always  been  with  the 
French,  the  malady  of  the  most  respectable  people.  Nearly 
all  the  friends  of  General  Foy,  almost  all  the  deputies  whose 
sad  and  sorrowful  faces  seem  to  weep  on  the  bas-reliefs  of 
his  mausoleum,  have  deserted  the  sacred  cause  of  liberty 
which  constituted  their  glory  and  our  hope  !  All  those 
Scevolas,  those  Cincinnatuses,  those  Brutuses  of  the  Opposi- 
tion, except  two  or  three,  have  plunged  body  and  soul  into 
the  new  regime.  Would  General  Foy  have,  like  the  others, 
embraced  the  altars  of  the  7th  August?  It  is  with  pain 
I  sav  that  I  believe  he  would.  In  truth,  no  orator  of  the 
Left  made,  under  the  Restoration,  so  many  dynastic  profes- 
sions :  he  overwhelmed  the  Bourbon  family  with  so  many 
compliments,  so  many  significant  protestations,  so  many 
delicate  attentions,  that  some  have  doubted  that  he  would 
have  passed  in  1830  into  the  popular  ranks.  But  there  are 
other  reasons  still  more  decisive. 

General  Foy  was  one  of  the  confidants  of  the  Orleans 
coterie.  In  the  Chamber  of  1825  he  advocated  the  appurte- 
nances of  the  crown.     He   would  gladly  have  torn  up  the 

historic  escutcheons  of  the  old  nobility,  to  which  he  did  not 

U 


122  T  11  BREST  ORATION. 

belong.  But  perhaps  he  would  have  been  less  virulent 
against  that  holiday  nobility  which  haunts  at  present  the 
halls  of  the  Tuileries.  He  inclined  to  a  hereditary  peerage 
with  Casimir  Perrier  and  almost  the  entire  Opposition  for 
fifteen  years.  A  man  of  action,  a  man  of  excitement,  he 
i  would  have  gone  with  the  current  of  1830.  He  would 
have  left  the  people  on  the  shore,  and  embarked  in  the 
golden  vessel  which  bore  the  fortunes  of  another  dynasty. 
To  resist  the  temptation,  it  was  not  sufficient  to  have  a  noble 
heart,  it  was  not  sufficient  to  have  eloquence  ;  it  was  neces- 
sary to  have  principles  :  General  Foy  had  none.  The  best 
of  our  monopoly  orators  are  often  but  poor  politicians.  They 
drape  themselves  theatrically  in  the  purple  of  constitutional 
fopperies.  They  trumpet  the  words  equality,  liberty,  coun- 
try, independence,  economy,  virtue.  They  know  the 
proper  place  of  every  figure  of  rhetoric,  the  apostrophe, 
the  metaphor,  the  prosopopoeia.  They  open  wide  their 
mouth  to  inspire  the  bald  official  acclamations  which  have 
been  squandered  turn  after  turn  upon  Louis  XVI.,  upon  the 
Convention,  the  Directory,  the  Consulate,  the  Empire,  the 
Restoration  and  all  the  rest.  They  can  tell  you  how  to 
gloss  the  usurpations  of  force  and  fraud  upon  the  rights  of 
the  people.  But  of  the  origin  of  those  rights,  of  their  sove- 
reignty, their  universality,  their  imprescriptibility,  their  in- 
violability, their  character,  and  their  guarantees,  what  do 
they  understand  ?  This  is  not  to  be  learned  in  the  school 
of  the  rhetoricians  or  the  parliaments  of  privilege.  The 
book  of  the  people  has  never  been  open  before  their  eyes. 

How  many  a  time  has  Napoleon  regretted  having  sur- 
vived a  day  !  Oh  !  how  he  envied,  upon  the  rock  of  Saint- 
Helena,  the  destiny  of  the  soldier  who  fell  by  the  first  bullet 
at  Waterloo  !  Fortune,  on  the  contrary,  in  entombing  him 
in  the  midst  of  his  oratorical  triumphs,  has  been  unwilling 
that  General  Foy  should  lose  anything  of  his  noble  name 
and  his  spotless  renown.  Had  he  lived,  he  had  been  a 
courtier  of  Louis-Philippe,  Minister  of  war.  Marshal  of 
France,  Constable  perhaps !     He  has  done  better,  and  died. 


BENJAMIN     CONSTANT.  123 


BENJAMIN  CONSTANT. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  the  orator  and  the  publicist  of 
the  English  school :  a  sickly  exotic  which  will  never  be  ac- 
climated in  France  ;  an  incomprehensible  trinity  of  per- 
sons unequal  in  power,  different  in  origin,  opposite  in  will — » 
a  strange  constitution  wherein  people  pretend  to  find  elemen- 
tary principle  in  accidental  amalgamation,  harmony  in  an- 
tagonism, truth  in  fiction,  movement  in  resistance,  and  life 
in  death — a  systematic  division  into  hierarchies,  castes,  mo- 
nopolies, privileges,  of  a  society  which  tends  incessantly  to 
agglomeration  and  unity — a  production,  in  fine,  anti-French 
and  anti-natural,  which  is  repulsive  to  temperament,  man- 
ners, logic  and  equality,  which  loads  the  feet  of  the  govern- ' 
ment  instead  of  giving  it  wings,  which  imparts  to  it  neither 
force  within  nor  grandeur  without,  and  seems  eternally  on 
the  eve  of  perishing  in  the  tempests  of  democracy,  or  under 
the  iron  heel  of  some  fortunate  soldier. 

But  perhaps,  after  the  enervating  influence  of  despotism 
upon  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  public,  the  nation,  infirm 
and  sickly,  had  strength  to  bear  but  a  regimen  of  transi- 
tion :  perhaps  remedies  too  heroical  would  have  proved 
fatal. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  wonderfully  well  qualified  to  ex- 
tract from  this  mixed  regime,  all  that  it  might  have  con- 
tained of  just  and  liberal.  He  even  exaggerated  the  conse- 
quences of  the  Charter  of  1814,  and  had  imagination  enough 
to  think  that  he  had  favored  liberty  in  the  particular,  where 
it  was  clearer  than  day  that  he  had  meant  to  advance,  and 
had  in  fact  advanced,  but  the  interests  of  power. 

Swayed,  against  his  own  will,  by  the  genius  of  our  na- 
tion, he  explained  upon  the  theory  of  equality,  those  English 
institutions  which  have  been  contrived  but  for  an  aristocracy. 
This  was  what  we  call  to  nilp  fip.tinn  nnon  fiction,  with  a 


124  THE     RESTORATION. 

vengeance.  But  what  matter  for  the  source,  provided  good 
be  done  ?  Benjamin  Constant  put  the  nation  in  train.  He 
taught,  before  acting,  to  think.  He  educated  politically  the 
middle  classes,  not  being  able  to  do  so  by  the  masses. 

Benjamin  Constant  had  neither  the  facility  of  Manuel, 
nor  the  profundity  of  Royer-CoUard,  nor  the  vehemence  of 
Casimir-Perrier,  nor  the  brilliancy  of  Foy,  nor  the  harmony 
of  Laine,  nor  the  graces  fo  Martignac,  nor  the  power  of 
de  Serre ;  but  of  all  the  orators  of  the  Left  he  was  the 
most  intellectual,  the  most  ingenious,  and  the  most  pro- 
lific. 

He  was  of  slim  make,  lank-legged,  round-shouldered, 
long-armed.  A  profusion  of  yellow  and  curling  hair  fell 
over  his  shoulders,  and  enchased  becomingly  his  expressive 
countenance.  His  tongue  sometimes  stuck  between  his 
teeth,  and  gave  him  the  lisping  of  a  woman,  something 
between  a  whistle  and  a  stammer.  When  he  recited,  he 
drawled  the  voice  monotonously.  When  he  extemporized,  he 
rested  both  hands  on  the  front  of  the  tribune,  and  rolled  forth 
the  flood  of  his  words.  Nature  had  denied  him  all  those 
exterior  advantages  of  person,  gesture  and  voice  of  which 
she  has  been  so  prodigal  towards  Berryer.  But  he  supplied 
these  deficiencies  by  force  of  intellect  and  labor. 

An  unwearied  soldier  of  the  press  and  the  tribune,  and 
armed  with  this,  his  two-edged  sword,  Benjamin  Constant 
did  not,  during  a  fifteen  years'  campaign,  leave  the  breach  a 
single  moment.  When  he  was  not  speaking,  he  wrote  ;  when 
he  was  not  writing,  he  spoke.  His  articles,  his  letters,  his 
pamphlets  and- discourses  would  compose  over  a  dozen  vol- 
umes. 

It  was  the  written  discourses  of  Foy,  Bignon,  Constant, 
Lafitte,  Dupont,  (d  I'Eure,)  Royer-Collard  in  particular,  that 
accomplished  the  education  of  the  liberal  party  of  France. 
Speeches  which  produce  little  effect  in  the  Chambers,  on  the 
deputies,  may  exercise  great  influence  in  print,  upon  the 
public.  If  they  have  less  influence  on  the  .formation  of 
laws,  they  have  more  in  the  formation  of  opinion  ;  and  ulti- 


BENJAMIN     CONSTANT.  125 

mately,  is  it  not  opinion  that  gives  sanction  to  the  laws  ? 
Is  it  not  better  to  have  millions  of  readers  than  a  few  hun- 
dreds of  auditors  ?  This  furnishes,  besides,  a  commodious 
and  quite  simple  means  of  deciding  that  much  controvert- 
ed question  about  the  relative  superiority  of  writing  and 
speaking.  No  one  now  reads  speeches,  no  one  listens  to 
extemporizers. 

Never  did  orator  manage  with  more  dexterity  than  Ben- 
jamin Constant  the  language  of  politics.  Whence  is  it 
that  we  can  read,  up  to  this  day,  without  fatigue,  his 
lengthiest  speeches  ?  It  is  because  they  contain  the  princi- 
ple of  perpetuation  style,  a  style  full  of  attraction.  Most 
of  them  are  masterpieces  of  animated  and  stringent  dialec- 
tic, which  have  had  since  nothing  to  equal  them,  and  which 
are  the  delight  of  those  capable  of  appreciating  them. 
What  wealth  of  imagery  !  what  abundance  of  illustration  ! 
what  flexibility  of  tone  !  what  varieties  of  topic !  what 
suavity  of  language  !  what  marvellous  art  in  the  disposition 
and  the  linked  deduction  of  his  reasonings  !  how  finely  tis- 
sued that  web  !  how  exquisitely  shaded,  how  harmoniously 
blended  all  the  colors  !  Thus  we  see,  beneath  a  transpa- 
rent and  glossy  skin,  the  blood  circulate,  the  veins  turn  blue, 
and  the  muscles  slightly  apparent. 

Perhaps  these  discourses  are  even  too  highly  finished,  too 
elaborate,  too  ingenious  for  the  tribune.  In  reading,  if  one 
does  not  comprehend  at  once,  he  has  the  resource  of  re- 
perusal.  If  a  speaker  be  not  apprehended  at  once,  there 
is  no  means  of  obtaining  a  repetition.  Repetitions  are  in- 
tolerable in  reading,  they  are  necessary  in  the  tribune,  as  in 
the  theatre  it  is  only  the  recitative  sounds  that  familiarize 
themselves  completely  to  the  ear  of  the  spectators.  Orators 
are  like  those  statues  placed  in  elevated  niches,  which  must 
be  cut  somewhat  roughly  to  produce  effect  from  a  distance. 
The  Chambers  are  not  like  the  drawing-rooms  of  the  aris- 
tocracy. The  flowers  of  rhetoric  are  ordinarily  in  them 
without  fragrance  or  color.     The  antitheses  escape  them, 

and  reasonings  too  vigorously  knotted,  fatigue  their  atten- 

11* 


120  THE      RESTORATION. 

tion.  To  be  understood,  you  must  repeat  the  same  thing  to 
them  tlii'ee  or  four  times  in  succession.  To  please  them, 
you  must  have  regard  rather  to  the  strength  of  the  blow, 
than  the  justness  of  the  aim,  and  speak  to  their  passions 
rather  than  to  their  intellifz;ence. 

The  Right  disliked  Benjamin  Constant  less  than  Manuel. 
It  is  that  in  French  assemblies,  of  whatever  sort,  there  is  al- 
ways a  weak  predilection  in  favor  of  men  of  wit.  Of  the 
French  preeminently  it  may  be  said  with  the  poet : 

Jhi  ri,  me  voild  desarme. 

The  prejudice  of  party  is  proof  against  eloquence,  against 
facts,  against  logic,  against  enthusiasm  even ;  it  yields  be- 
fore a  laugh. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  always  master  of  his  expression 
as  of  his  thought.  If  the  Right  felt  hurt  by  some  word  a 
little  sharp,  he  found,  without  breaking  the  thread  of  the 
discourse,  an  equivalent  to  it,  and  if  the  equivalent  offended 
still,  he  substituted  a  thircl  approximation.  This  presence 
of  mind,  this  deep  knowledge  of  the  resources  of  the  lan- 
guage, this  wonderful  graduation  of  softening  synonymes, 
used  to  surprise  agreeably  his  adversaries  themselves.  So, 
for  example,  he  said  :  I  wish  to  spare  the  Crown  (murmurs  ;) 
he  changes — the  Monarch  (murmurs  still ;)  he  resumes — the 
constitutional  King,  (the  murmurs  cease.) 

Benjamin  Constant  v/as  much  more  caustic  than  Manuel. 
But  he  steeped  his  sting  in  honey.  He  said  what  he  pleased 
because  he  had  the  art  of  saying  what  he  pleased.  More- 
over, though  a  liberal  and  an  opponent,  Benjamin  Constant 
was  a  thorough  gentleman,  and  those  Chambers  of  gentle- 
men had  a  foible  for  this  quality. 

It  must  be  added  that  he  was  endowed,  in  the  highest  per- 
fection, with  that  power  of  adaptation  which  distinguishes 
literary  men,  and  is  the  faculty  of  penetrating  and  active 
imaginations.  This  description  of  minds  will  present  you  a 
subject  in  a  variety  of  modes  of  resemblance  which  create 
an  illusion  to  the  common  eye.     They  have  but  the  sem- 


BENJAMIN     CONSTANT.  127 

blance  of  science.  They  have  often  but  the  terms,  and  you 
would  think  they  are  masters  of  the  substance  and  founda- 
tion. 

His  discourses  abounded  in  lively,  ingenious,  and  keen 
expressions.     He  characterized  the  press  as  follows  : 

''  The  press  is  the  tribune  amplified.  Speech  is  the  ve- 
hicle of  intelligence,  and  intelligence  is  the  mistress  of  the 
material  world." 

He  defined  the  censorship  :  "  A  monopoly  of  calumny 
exercised  by  baseness  for  the  profit  of  power." 

Of  the  ministry,  he  used  to  say  :  "  It  is  as  impossible,  in 
all  that  pertains  to  despotism,  to  calumniate,  as  to  soften 
them." 

Speaking  of  some  deputies  who  made  verbose  defences  of 
sinecures :  "  They  are  not  for  economy  in  either  money  or 
words." 

All  this  is  witty,  but  it  savors  of  the  writer  rather  than 
of  the  orator. 

Here  is  a  brilliant  denunciation  of  the  lottery  system, 
which  will  give  an  idea  of  the  excellences  and  defects  of 
his  manner : 

"  If  there  existed,  gentlemen,  in  your  public  squares,  or 
in  some  obscure  den,  a  species  of  game  which  brought  in- 
fallible ruin  upon  the  players ;  if  the  director  of  this  illicit 
and  deceitful  concern  were  to  avow  to  you  that  he  played 
with  an  absolute  certainty  of  winning,  that  is  to  say,  in  op- 
position to  the  rules  of  the  most  ordinary  probity ;  that  to 
insure  the  success  of  his  dishonest  speculation,  he  lays  his 
snare  for  the  class  the  most  easily  deceived  and  cor- 
rupted ;  if  he  were  to  tell  you  that  he  surrounds  the  poor 
with  allurements ;  that  he  drives  the  innocent  to  the  most 
culpable  deeds ;  that  he  has  recourse,  for  the  purpose  of 
inveigling  his  prey,  to  legerdemain  and  lying ;  that  his  lies 
and  impostures  are  hawked  in  open  day  in  every  street  of  the 
city  ;  that  his  absurd  and  illusory  promises  are  rung  in  the 
ears  of  credulity  and  ignorance ;  that  he  has  organized  a 
system  of  secrecy  and  darkness,  so  that  these  dupes  should 


128  THE     RESTORATION. 

plunge  into  the  gulf  before  reason  could  enlighten,  fear  of 
blame  repress,  or  the  warning  of  their  neighbors  preserve 
them  from  the  temptation — were  he  to  add,  that  to  respond 
to  his  perfidious  invitations,  renewed  incessantly,  tlie  domes- 
tic robs  his  master,  the  husband  pillages  his  wife,  the  father 
his  children,  and  that  he,  seated  tranquilly  in  his  privileged 
cavern,  at  once  instigator,  and  receiver,  and  accomplice, 
stretches  out  his  hand  to  grasp  the  produce  of  theft  and  the 
miserable  pittances  torn  from  the  subsistence  of  families — 
if  he  ended  by  admitting  that  year  after  year  the  disorders 
which  he  occasioned  brought  his  victims  from  want  to  crime 
and  from  crime  to  the  prison,  suicide,  or  the  scaffold  ;  what 
would  be  your  sentiments  ?" 

When  Benjamin  Constant  was  worried  by  interruptions, 
his  eye  would  flash  fire,  and  he  poured  forth  a  volley  of 
natural  and  cutting  repartees.  He  turned  everything  to 
account,  a  letter,  a  fact,  the  slightest  circumstance,  a  histor- 
ical analogy,  an  admission,  an  exclamation,  a  word.  With 
elbow  on  the  edge  of  his  desk,  ear  erect,  outstretched  neck, 
pen  in  hand,  he  seemed  to  devour  the  debate,  the  tribune 
and  the  speaker.  His  attention  was  so  absorbing  and  his 
facility  of  composition  so  great,  that  while  listening  to  the 
discourse  of  his  adversary  he  wrote  currente  calamo  its  refu- 
tation, which  he  came  forward  to  read  immediately  to  the 
tribune.  Method,  arrangement,  argument,  style,  it  was  in 
all  complete  ;  such  was  his  power  of  self-isolation  and  self- 
abstraction,  not  only  from  the  noise  and  throng  around  him, 
but  even  from  his  own  emotions ! 

But  it  must  be  said,  these  refinements  of  style,  this  ex- 
quisite elegance,  this  art  of  hair-splitting  synonymes,  takes 
from  parliamentary  recitation  its  vigor,  its  natural  suppleness, 
and  even  its  grace.  The  tribune  should  not  smell  too  much 
of  the  Academy,  nor  the  orator  be  but  an  artist.  To  each 
place  the  proper  kind,  to  each  personage  the  proper  char- 
acter. 

There  are  two  species  of  dialectic  :  the  one  compact  and 
nervous,  the  other  insinuating  and  acute  ]  the  one  batter- 


BENJAMIN      CONSTANT.  129 

ing  down  by  the  weight  of  its  reasonings,  the  other  piercing 
through  with  the  sharp  point  of  its  dart ;  the  one  going 
directly  to  seek  the  question  in  the  question,  the  other  twist- 
ing itself  about  it,  and  penetrating  it  by  the  joints  and  issues. 
Benjamin  Constant  had  this  latter  species  of  dialectic. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  eloquence  :  the  one  issuing  from 
the  depth  of  the  soul,  as  from  a  spring,  rolling  along  its 
copious  floods,  sweeping  all  before  it,  overwhelming  by  its 
very  mass,  pressing,  upsetting,  ingulfing  its  adversaries ; 
the  other  weavinsj  its  threads  around  them,  drawing  them 
gradually  into  its  web,  fascinating  them  with  its  gaze,  entan- 
gling them,  liming  them,  holding  them  fast,  and  putting  them 
to  death  by  a  thousand  bites.  Benjamin  Constant  had  this  last 
sort  of  eloquence.  It  dazzled  rather  than  warmed.  He 
was  more  adroit  than  vehement,  more  persuasive  than  con- 
vincing, more  picturesque  than  profound,  more  artful  than 
strong,  more  subtile  than  solid.  He  loved  art  as  a  political 
instrument,  he  also  loved  it  for  its  own  sake.  He  delighted 
in  the  niceties  of  style,  in  the  oppositions  of  words  and  of 
thoughts,  and  he  amused  himself  in  glancing  the  sunbeams 
from  the  facets  of  the  antithesis.  Parliamentary  oratory  re- 
quires more  of  nerve,  of  gravity,  of  simplicity  and  ampli- 
tude. To  be  an  orator,  it  is  not  necessary  to  strive  too  much 
to  appear  one. 

Benjamin  Constant  was  not  a  mere  speech-maker,  he  was 
also  a  great  publicist ;  and  it  is  in  this  quality  more  especially, 
that  he  has  assumed  the  mission  of  protecting  political  wri- 
ters.  No  one  has  better  understood,  no  one  has  better  de- 
fended,  than  he,  the  rights  of  the  press — of  that  power  more 
mighty  than  armies,  religions,  legislatures  and  kings,  more 
rapid  than  the  winds,  more  boundless  than  space,  as  intelli- 
gent as  thought.  But  the  special  character  of  all  the  par- 
liaments of  the  Restoration,  was  the  envious,  instinctive  and 
deadly  hatred  of  the  press.  Had  they  a  latent  presentiment 
that  the  press  would  prove  their  overthrow  ?  Yes,  the  press 
did  indeed  'overthrow  them,  but  they  gave  it  no  small  aid. 
Besides  this,  the  tribune  has,  in  all  times,  been  jealous  of 


130  THE     RESTORATION. 

the  press.  The  tribune  has  always  sought  to  humble  it  by- 
pot-house  abuse,  and  to  stifle  its  voice  beneath  iniquitous 
proceedings  and  outrageous  penalties.  It  is  the  revolt  of 
property  against  intellect.  The  most  obscure  deputy  of 
the  most  unknown  village  of  France  has  the  pitiful  presump- 
tion to  think  himself  far  above  a  journalist.  He  does  not 
dream  that  one  of  those  country  hinds,  who  mounts  the  tri- 
bune, there  to  mouth  their  patois,  would  not  be  deemed  wor- 
thy of  admission  among  the  paper-folders,  and  superscribers 
of  the  editor's  back  office,  lest  they  should  bungle  the  subscri- 
ber's name  on  the  wrapper. 

Benjamin  Constant  never  forgot,  that  before  being  depu- 
ty, he  was  an  editor,  and  that  this  was  the  highest  feather 
in  his  cap.  On  every  occasion,  and  at  every  moment,  he 
called  with  energy  for  reform  of  the  arbitrary  feature  of  the 
censorship,  the  abolition  of  all  exceptional  jurisdiction,  the 
trial  by  jury  in  offences  against  the  Court  and  the  tribunals, 
and  the  liberty  of  publication.  To-day,  he  would  have  the 
same  guarantees  to  ask  for ;  for,  to  the  shame  of  a  govern- 
ment, born  of  the  blood  and  vitals  of  the  press,  the  press  still 
writhes  and  struggles  in  the  same  shackles  as  under  the 
Restoration.  Its  only  alternative  is  to  lie  or  be  silent.  It 
must  either  abstain  from  discussing  the  principle  of  the  gov- 
ernment, or  receive  the  kicks  and  spittings  of  a  gouty  Sen- 
ate.  It  is  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  placed,  thus  manacled, 
between  the  ruin  of  confiscation  and  the  l)urning  tombs  of 
Salazie ;  and  as  a  worse  insult,  a  last  torment,  tlie  vile  tools 
of  all  this  are  heard  to  bawl  themselves  hoarse  in  crying  : 
*'  A  triumph  !  a  triumph  !  the  press  is  free  !" 

Benjamin  Constant  loved  to  bestow  magnificent  eulogies 
upon  the  studious  youth  of  the  schools.  Now,  this  youth  is 
sunk  in  inertness  like  the  rest  of  the  nation.  We  surcharge 
its  memory,  in  place  of  forming  its  judgment.  Its  tender 
mind  is  enervated  by  a  superfetation  of  lectures  and  courses. 
It  is  dipped  over  and  over  in  the  materialities  of  eclecticism. 
It  is  taught  neither  religion,  nor  morality,  ncfr  logic,  nor 
brotherly  love,  nor  love  of  country.     But  it  must  be  owned 


BENJAMIN     CONSTANT.  131 

the  studious  and  golden  youth  has  never  been  more  expert 
at  dancino;  the  cachucha. 

Constant's  instruction  as  a  legislator  was  not  particularly 
solid.  Like  all  the  publicists  of  the  Restoration,  he  was 
little  versed  in  the  material  interests  and  the  true  principles 
of  industrial  and  rural  economy.  There  was  also  in  his  re- 
ligious notions  and  his  political  philosophy,  something  of 
vagueness,  as  of  a  reflection  of  the  infidelity  and  scepticism 
of  the  18th  century.  His  faith  was  that  of  the  intellect, 
not  that  of  tlie  heart.  He  did  not  value  religion  for  its 
dogmas,  but  for  its  soothing  influence  upon  the  conscience. 
He  did  not  give  his  support  to  Royalty  because  it  was  right, 
but  because  it  was  necessary.  He  disapproved  not  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  republic,  but  its  form.  "  Republican  institutions," 
he  used  to  say,  "  are  impossible  in  the  state  of  general  intelli- 
gence, in  the  condition  industrial,  mercantile,  military  and 
European  of  France."  It  was  with  him  a  question  of  op- 
portunity, almost  of  geography. 

He  attacked  Rousseau  for  having  maintained  the  divine 
right,  while  he  himself  disallowed  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people,  holding  but  a  sort  of  sovereignty  of  justice,  not  un- 
like the  sovereignty  of  reason  of  the  Doctrinarians,  and  quite 
as  undefinable,  as  incomprehensible,  as  inapplicable.  Does 
not  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  such  as  we  understand  it, 
imply  necessarily  the  sovereignty  of  right,  of  justice,  and 
of  reason  ?  I  know  scarcely  a  single  political  or  social 
question  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  does  not  solve. 

Politically,  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  is  the  luminary 
which  shines  in  the  darkness  of  human  disputation.  It  is 
by  its  light  alone  that  the  logicians  can  proceed.  Beyond  it 
all  is  arbitrary,  is  iniquity,  contradiction,  chaos.  For  want 
of  this  pilot  so  sure,  so  infallible,  the  greatest  politician  of 
the  Restoration  went  head- foremost,  like  a  vulgar  helmsman, 
upon  the  shoals  of  the  Revolution  of  July.  He  did  not  see 
that  no  power  can  either  prescribe,  or  prevail  against,  the 
eternal  right  of  nations  to  govern  themselves  as  they  please. 

His  second  error  was  to  imagine  that  he  could  hold  office 


132  THE     RESTORATION. 

and  retain  his  independence.  Instead  of  staying  with  the 
people  on  the  bank,  and  looking  on  while  the  Doctrinarian 
torrent  was  passing  away,  he  stopped  in  the  middle  of  the 
current  and  was  carried  off  by  the  flood.  His  lofty  reason 
stooped  and  his  imagination  became  quite  reconciled  to  the 
situation.  Before,  a  look  from  Napoleon  was  enough  to 
fascinate  him.  He  now  fell  anew  under  the  charm  of  an- 
other power.  But  he  recovered  gradually  the  plenitude  of 
his  faculties.  He  opened  his  eyes  and  saw  with  Lafayette, 
Salverte,  Arago,  and  all  that  glorious  band  of  patriots,  that 
the  Revolution  of  July  was  not  a  peace,  but  a  truce.  He 
would  soon  have  abandoned  the  booty  to  mix  in  the  scram- 
ble, and  been  dismissed  or  resigned,  had  he  not  been  slow  to 
sound  the  signal  of  opposition. 

But  already  the  springs  of  life  were  fast  giving  way.  His 
noble  head  was  drooped,  and  he  sometimes  held  it  between 
his  hands  as  if  to  meditate  on  the  vanity  of  revolutions.  His 
dreams  of  the  future,  those  beautiful  illusions  which  for  fif- 
teen years  back  he  had  been  cherishing,  had  vanished  be- 
fore him,  one  after  the  other.  He  felt  himself  affected  with 
gloomy  dejection  and  invincible  melancholy.  He  crawled 
with  difficulty  from  his  bench  to  the  tribune,  and  with  pallid 
lips  which  could  smile  no  more,  he  bade  adieu  to  dying  lib- 
erty and  descended  with  it  into  the  tomb. 


ROYER-COLLARD.  133 


ROYER-COLLARD. 

RoYER-CoLLARD  is  the  venerable  patriarch  of  the  consti- 
tutional royalists  of  the  Restoration. 

We  may  now  speak  of  Royer-Collard  with  entire  impar- 
tiality and  unreserve.  He  has  still  a  seat  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  but  he  takes  no  part  in  the  debates.  He  passes 
back  and  forth  before  us,  merely  to  remind  us  that  such  a 
man  has  lived  ;  like  those  majestic  caryatides  of  Osiris  and 
of  Isis  which  the  Romans,  when  masters  of  Egypt,  used  to 
place  in  front  of  the  new  temples,  to  testify  to  futurity  that 
there  had  been  on  these  shores  another  temple  and  other  di- 
vinities, a  different  creed  and  different  pontiffs. 

Seated  at  the  head  of  the  Chamber,  M.  Royer-Collard  no 
more  directs,  he  observes.  He  does  not  speak,  he  meditates. 
He  now  belongs  but  to  the  past.  We  may  already  pass 
upon  him  the  judgment  of  the  dead. 

The  Chambers  of  the  Restoration  had  divers  politi- 
cal schools.  General  Foy  represented  the  military  school  ; 
Casimir  Perrier,  the  financial  school ;  de  Serre,  the  gram- 
matical school ;  Benjamin  Constant,  the  constitutional  school  -, 
Royer-Collard,  the  philosophical. 

He  had  less  brilliancy  than  General  Foy,  less  subtlety, 
dialectic  skill  and  flexibility  than  Benjamin  Constant,  less 
impetuosity  and  fire  than  Casimir  Perrier,  less  of  legislative 
science  and  of  originality  than  de  Serre.  But  he  was  the 
first  of  our  parliamentary  writers.  He  had  a  sort  of  large 
and  magnificent  style,  a  firm  touch,  certain  erudite  and  pro- 
digiously elaborate  artifices  of  language,  and  those  felici- 
tous expressions  which  cling  to  the  memory  and  which  are 
the  lucky  chances  of  the  orator.  There  is  a  virility  in  his 
speeches  which  reminds  one  of  Mirabeau,  and  some  orator- 
ical movements  scarce  sooner  loosed  than  checked,  as  if  he 
feared  their  vehemence  ;  a  lofty  reason  in  matters  of  relig- 

!*> 


lo4  THE     RESTORATION. 

ion  and  morals  ;  on  every  subject,  a  method  ample  without 
stiffness,  severe,  dogmatical. 

A  single  aximn,  a  word  impregnated  by  the  meditation  of 
that  powerful  head,  germinated,  grew  up,  expanded  like  the 
acorn  which  becomes  an  oak,  all  whose  ramifications  spring 
from  the  same  trunk,  and  which,  animated  by  the  same  vi- 
tality, nourished  by  the  same  sap,  forms  but  an  individual 
whole,  despite  the  variety  of  its  foliage  and  the  infinite  mul- 
tiplicity of  its  branches.  Such  were  the  discourses  of  Royer- 
Collard,  admirable  for  the  vigorous  shoots  of  the  style  and 
the  beauty  of  the  form. 

It  was  philosophy  applied  to  politics,  with  its  abstract  and 
rather  obscure  formularies.  M.  Royer-Collard  was,  if  I 
may  be  allowed  the  expression,  a  delver  of  ideas.  Fie  was 
a  speaking  intellect. 

There  is  sometimes,  however,  more  void  than  substance 
in  that  profundity,  and  the  splendor  of  the  form  deludes  re- 
specting the  hollowness  of  the  principles. 

M.  Royer-Collard  has,  more  than  any  other  man,  by  the 
authority  of  his  name  and  his  eloquence,  contributed  to  the 
formation  of  our  public  manners  termed  constitutional.  He 
urged  the  middle  classes,  without  meaning  it,  to  the  subver- 
sion of  the  throne.  He  was  one  of  the  most,  unintentional 
no  doubt,   but  one  of  the  most  active,  demolishers  of  that 


reo-mne. 


A  burgess  royalist,  an  able,  ardent  and  inexorable  enemy 
of  aristocratic  privileges,  he  assailed  them  without  respite 
by  means  of  irony,  of  argument,  of  eloquence.  But  could 
a  conceded  cliarter  dispense  with  the  support  of  an  interme- 
diate body  in  tiie  State?  This  charter  was  not  a  contract, 
bui  a  gift.  A  mountain  rocic  with  the  soil  removed  from 
around  its  base  must  fall.  So  fell  the  throne.  To  attack 
the  crown  and  disarm  the  people,  this  was  the  inconsistency 
of  the  liberals  of  those  times. 

Fifteen  years  were  spent  in  organizing  antagonism  be- 
tween the  Chambers  and  the  King.  The  latter  pushed  for- 
ward to  its  proper  end  of  despotism,  the  former  to  their  pro- 


R  O  Y  ER- C  0  LL  AR  D.  .        135 

per  end  of  omnipotence.  The  Restoration  was  but  a  per- 
petual struggle  between  these  two  powers,  to  gain,  one  upon 
the  other,  a  few  inches  of  ground.  But  the  true  theory  of 
the  matter  recognizes  but  a  single  power  of  which  no  one 
then  made  the  least  account — the  nation.  King,  president, 
consul,  chambers,  ministers  are  but  the  delegates  of  the  na- 
tion. To  one  class  of  delegates  it  intrusts  the  legislative, 
to  another  the  executive  department.  It  does  not  say  to 
them  :  Divide  yourselves  into  factions  and  waste  the  time  in 
partisan  conflict ;  but  it  says :  Cultivate  a  community  of 
understanding  and  agreement,  and  a  harmony  of  policy  and 
procedure.  What  would  a  farmer  say  to  his  plough-boys, 
if,  instead  of  tilling  the  soil  and  gathering  in  the  harvest, 
they  should  fall  to*  beating  each  other,  to  the  infliction  of 
bloody  noses  ?  What  would  a  manufacturer  say  to  his  op- 
eratives, if,  in  place  of  keeping  each  to  his  tools  and  his 
trade,  they  were  to  set  to  quarrelling  with  each  other  ? 
In  the  working  of  any  machine  whatever,  be  it  industrial 
or  political,  there  must  be  unity,  there  must  be  harmony. 

The  theories  of  representative  government  which  se- 
duced M.  Royer-Collard,  are  more  metaphysical  than  po- 
litical, more  speculative  than  experimental.  They  are 
ranged  in  beautiful  order;  but  hobble,  when  set  a-going. 
He  has  varnished  them  over  with  the  colors  of  a  brilliant 
style,  but  they  will  not  bear  analysis,  they  would  not  with- 
stand the  slightest  assault  of  logic. 

His  subtile  and  too  often  misty  distinctions  between  per- 
sonal qualifications  and  public  interests,  as  conditions  of 
representative  eligibility,  between  parties  and  factions,  be- 
tween the  sovereignty  of  the  people  and  the  sovereignty  of 
reason,  are  arguments  for  the  schools,  rather  tli an  for  the  tri- 
bune. It  is  almost  always  a  professor  of  philosophy  you 
hear  speak,  not  a  publicist. 

The  political  life  of  Royer-Collard  has  been  but  a  con- 
tinual passing  back  and  forth,  from  power  to  liberty,  and 
from  liberty  to  power.  He  changed  from  one  party  to  the 
other,  shoving  to  its  fate  that  which  was  going  down,  check- 


13G  THE     RESTORATION. 

ing  the  precipitancy   of  the  victorious   side,  forgetting  but 
one  thing — never  to  define  the  limits  of  either. 

The  error  of  General  Foy,  of  Royer-Collard,  and  others, 
was,  to  contend  that,  "the  Charter,  being  the  fundamen- 
tal law,  it  was  not  for  theory  to  discuss  it."  I  humbly 
beg  your  pai'don,  gentlemen  ;  but  theory,  which  is  but  the 
faculty  of  free  examination,  has  the  supreme  right  of 
discussing  everything ;  and  in  fact,  the  theory  of  national 
sovereignty,  the  sole  true  one,  did  discuss  the  Charter  of 
1814  so  effectually  as  to  demolish  it. 

What  a  spectacle,  what  a  lesson  is  this  idle  and  impotent 
struggle  of  the  greatest  intellects,  against  the  principle 
greater  still  of  the  popular  sovereignty,  which  presses  and 
enfolds  them,  as  the  bark  of  the  fabled  trees  did,  with  their 
invincible  clasp,  the  heroes  and  the  demi-gods  of  the 
poet ! 

Of  this  principle,  Royer-Collard  remarks  :  "  The  popu- 
lar will  of  to-day  retracts  that  of  yesterday,  without  engag- 
ing that  of  to-morrow." 

To  this  we  might  reply,  that  the  absolute  monarch  too 
may  change  his  will,  from  minute  to  minute.  But  if,  in  a 
society  ruled  by  a  single  man,  these  changes  at  sight  do  not 
occur,  why  should  they  be  made  in  a  country  governed  by 
law  alone  ?  Why  should  that  which  is  done  for  the  -inter- 
est  of  one  or  of  few,  be  less  liable  to  change  than  what  is 
done  for  the  interest  of  all  ? 

Your  life  too  is  your  own  ;  none  can  hinder  you  to  go 
throw  yourself  into  the  river,  or  shoot  yourself:  you  do  not 
kill  yourself  ho^Yever !  you  may  burn  your  own  house  or 
level  it  with  the  ground  ;  yet  you  do  not  do  it ! 

Equally  groundless  is  the  objection  of  M.  Royer-Collard, 
drawn  from  what  he  calls  right.  "  There  cannot  be  a  par- 
ticular right  which  is  in  contravention  of  abstract  right — • 
that  right  without  which  there  is  nothing  upon  this  earth, 
but  a  life  without  dignity,  and  a  death  without  hope." 

Perfectly  well  said.  But  it  remains  to  define  right  and 
designate  where  it  resides ;  this  M.  Royer-Collard  has  not 


ROY  ER-COL  LARD.  137 

done,  and  it  is  the  whole  difficulty.  Or  rather,  if  you  ex- 
amine closely,  you  will  find  that  definitively  this  abstract 
right  yields  to  the  law  of  numbers,  because  definitively  it 
results  from  numbers.  This  is  so  true,  that  right,  as  it  is 
embodied  in  legislation,  as  it  is  determined  in  application, 
always  depends  upon  a  single  voice.  A  hundred  and  one 
to  a  hundred,  such  is  the  test  of  the  legal  right  which  com- 
mands obedience,  and  which  orders  and  conducts  the  whole 
society. 

The  fundamental  laws  of  which  M.  Royer-Collard  speaks, 
neither  are  nor  can  be  but  those  which  the  nation  has  given 
itself,  and  which  it  may  therefore  alter.  The  national  rights 
he  speaks  of,  neither  are  nor  can  be  other  than  the  rights  of 
th©  nation.     There  is  no  going  beyond. 

No  nation  could  be  governed  forever  by  the  laws  of  its 
fathers,  for  it  would  not  be  free.  Nations,  being  composed 
of  men  who  are  in  their  nature  restless  and  chancreable, 
cannot  remain  stationary  and  always  the  same.  The  dead 
have  not  the  power  to  bind,  against  their  will,  the  living. 
Each  generation  belongs  to  itself,  and  can  no  more  bind  the 
future  than  it  can  have  been  bound  by  the  past.  This  is 
fact  and  right,  and  what  is  there  to  be  said  against  the  fact 
and  the  right  ?     Nothing. 

"  Others,"  said  Royer-Collard  himself,  "  may  grieve  and 
rage  at  it ;  for  my  part,  I  thank  Providence  that  he  has 
called  to  the  benefits  of  civilization  a  large  number  of  his 
creatures." 

Very  well !  that  which  Royer-Collard  demanded  for  the 
interest  of  the  middle  class,  we  (of  the  popular  party)  ask 
for  the  interest  of  the  people.  We  ask,  as  he  does,  that 
there  be  called  to  the  benefits  of  civilization,  a  still  larsrer 
number  of  human  creatures.  M.  Royer-Collard  is,  here, 
without  suspecting,  and  without  wishing  it,  on  the  brink  of 
universal  suffrage.  He  was  on  his  way  to  it ;  we  have  ar- 
rived. 

Yet  he  persists  :  "  The  sovereignty  of  the  people  is  but  the 

19* 


138  THE     RESTORATION. 

sovereignty  of  brute  force,  and  the  form  the  most  absolute 
of  absolute  povver." 

But  if  the  power  which  emanates  from  the  whole  consti- 
tutes necessarily  the  most  absolute  of  all  powers,  how  should 
not  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  which  is  the  form  of  that 
power,  be  the  most  absolute  of  all  the  forms  ?  It  is  the  in- 
evitable consequence  of  the  principle.  The  question  besides 
is  not  whether  it  forms  the  most  absolute,  but  whether  it  be 
the  truest  and  best. 

M.  Royer-Collard  hastens  to  add,  not  without  some  con- 
tradiction :  "  With  a  sovereignty  of  this  sort  without  rules 
or  limits,  without  duties  or  conscience,  there  are  neither 
constitutions  nor  laws,  nor  good,  nor  evil,  nor  past,  nor 
future." 

I  fear  this  is  no  better  than  pure  declamation.  For  to 
reject  the  authority  of  the  greatest  number,  or  what  is  the 
same,  of  the  majority,  is  to  place  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  the  minority.  Therefore,  either  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, that  the  sovereignty  of  the  minority  is  also  without 
rule  or  restriction,  without  duty  or  conscience,  and  that 
with  it  there  can  be  neither  constitution,  nor  law,  nor  good, 
nor  evil,  nor  past  nor  future,  or  it  must  be  allowed  that  the 
majority  or  greatest  number  has  duties,  rules,  limits,  con- 
science, quite  as  well  as  the  minority  or  lesser  number. 

We  do  not  see  that  the  United  States,  where  universal 
suffrage  exists  in  full  opinion  and  full  operation,  are  not 
quite  as  stable,  quite  as  orderly,  quite  as  moral,  quite  as 
conscientious  as  monarchical  governments.  And  in  addi- 
tion, they  have  the  advantage  of  enjoying  the  realities  of 
liberty,  while  the  monarchies  have  but  its  shadow  ;  they 
have  right  on  their  side,  and  how  many  monarchies  can 
with  truth  say  the  same? 

From  the  commencement  of  the  Restoration,  M.  Royer- 
Collard  foresaw  the  Revolution  of  July,  which  was  visible 
■  already  on  the  lowering  confines  of  the  political  horizon. 
He  classified  and  defined  after  his  manner  the  only  two 


ROYER-COLLARD.  139 

parties  who    then    had   any    life,    and    wjio   contended    for 
supremacy. 

"There  is  a  faction  born  of  the  Revolution,  of  its  bad 
doctrines  and  its  bad  actions,  whose  vague  perhaps,  but 
whose  constant,  aim  is  usurpation,  because  it  has  come  to 
be  a  matter  of  taste  with  them  still  more  than  of  want. 
There  is  a  faction  born  of  privilege  which  detests  equality 
and  seeks  to  destroy  it  at  any  cost.  I  know  not  what  these 
factions  do,  but  I  know  what  they  mean,  and  above  all  I 
understand  what  they  say.  I  recognize  the  one  by  its 
hatred  of  all  legitimate  authority,  political,  moral,  religious ; 
the  other  by  its  instinctive  contempt  for  all  rights  public 
and  private,  by  the  arrogant  cupidity  which  leads  it  to 
covet  all  the  advantages  of  public  office  and  of  social  con- 
sideration. The  factions  I  speak  of,  reduced  to  their  proper 
force,  are  weak  in  numbers ;  they  are  odious  to  the  nation 
and  will  never  strike  deep  root  in  its  soil :  but  also  they 
are  ardent,  and  while  we  are  divided,  they  march  towards 
their  object.  If,  from  the  persistence  of  the  government  in. 
abandoning  us  and  abandoning  itself,  they  should  come  into 
collision  once  more,  if  our  unhappy  country  is  to  be  again 
torn  and  ensanguined  by  their  conflicts,  my  mind  is  made 
up  ;  I  declare  in  advance  to  the  victorious  faction,  which- 
ever it  may  be,  tliat  I  shall  detest  its  victory ;  I  ask  from 
this  day  forth  to  be  inscribed  on  the  list  of  its  proscrip- 
tions." 

What  M.  Royer-Collard  terms,  in  his  Doctrinarian  phra- 
seology, the  struggle  of  two  factions,  is  no  other  than  the 
contest  between  aristocracy  and  democracy,  of  these  two 
indestructible  and  rival  powers,  which  Providence  has 
hidden  in  the  depths  of  every  society,  to  give  them,  to  the 
end  of  time,  the  agitation  of  vitality. 

M.  Guizot,  in  imitation  of  his  master,  has  adopted  the 
famous  distinction  between  factions  and  parties ;  it  being 
understood  of  course  that  they  are,  he  and  his  friends,  of 
the  category  of  party,  that  is  to  say,  men  of  principle,  of 
virtue  and  of  genius ;  and  that  their  adversaries  belong  to 


140  T  II  E     R  E  S  T  O  R  A  T  I  O  N  . 

the  denomination  of  faction,  that   is  to  say,  a  compound  of 
profligacy,  mischief  and  ignorance. 

In  general,  M.  Guizot  has  made  large  use  of  the  dis- 
courses of  Royer-CoUard,  and  he  gives  us  for  new  what  is 
only  rejuvenated. 

The  elevated  reason  of  M.  Royer-Collard,  at  strife  with 
itself  upon  impossible  solutions,  was  continually  giving  the 
lie  to  his  borrowed  principles.  Doubtless,  he  is  separated 
from  the  democratic  party,  by  his  conservative  sentiments, 
and  his  political  faith ;  but  he  belongs  to  it,  in  some  sort, 
by  his  involuntary  will,  as  evinced  by  expressions  that  often 
escape  him  in  his  speeches. 

Elections,  taxation,  liberty  of  the  press,  military  profes- 
sion, law  of  sacrilege,  judiciary  organization,  public  in- 
struction, responsibility  of  ministers,  municipal  institutions — 
all  the  great  questions  of  the  day  have  exercised  the  medi- 
tations of  this  grave  and  lofty  genius.  All  his  discourses 
are  full  of  beautiful  sentiments.    Here  are  several  of  them  : 

"  The    crimes   of  the    Revolution  were  not   necessary. 
They  were  the  obstacle,  not  the  means." 
— "  Representative  government  is  justice  organized,  reason 
animated,  morality  armed." 

— "  The  beautiful  is  felt,  it  is  not  defined.  It  is  everywhere,' 
within  us  and  without  us,  in  the  perfections  of  our  nature 
and  in  the  wonders  of  the  sensible  world ;  in  the  indepen- 
dent energy  of  solitary  thought  and  in  the  public  order  of 
human  societies ;  in  virtue  and  in  the  passions ;  in  joy  and 
in  tears  ;  in  life  and  in  death." 

— "  The  representative  governments  have  been  doomed  to 
toil.  Like  the  laborer,  they  live  by  the  sweat  of  their  brow." 
— "  Constitutions  are  not  tents  erected  for  sleep." 
— "  Special  legislation  is  a  usurious  borrowing,  which  ruins 
a  government,  even  while  it  seems  to  enrich  it." 
— "  There  are  all  sorts  of  republics.  There  is  the  aristo- 
cratic republic,  that  of  England  :  There  is  the  burgess  re- 
public, that  of  France  :  There  is  the  democratic  republic, 
that  of  the  United  States." 


ROYER-COLLARD.  141 

— "  Ministers  have  two  sorts  of  responsibility,  the  dramatic 
and  the  moral." 

The  following  on  the  subject  of  religion  is  vigorous  in  ex- 
pression and  elevated  in  thought. 

"  Human  societies  are  born,  live  and  die  upon  the  earth. 
But  they  do  not  contain  the  entire  man.  There  remains  to 
him  the  noblest  part  of  himself — those  lofty  faculties  by 
which  he  soars  to  God,  to  a  future  life,  to  unknown  blisses 
in  an  invisible  world.  These  are  his  religious  convictions, 
that  true  grandeur  of  man,  the  consolation  and  charm  of  weak 
ness  and  misfortune,  the  inviolable  refuge  against  the  tyran- 
nies of  this  world." 

How  his  eloquence  rises  with  the  subject. 

"  Religion  exists  in  itself  and  by  itself.  It  is  truth  itself 
over  which  the  laws  have  no  jurisdiction.  Religion  has  of 
human  but  its  ministers,  weak  men  like  ourselves,  liable  to 
the  same  wants,  subject  to  the  same  passions,  mortal  and 
corruptible  organs  of  incorruptible  and  immortal  truth." 

And  further  on  in  the  same  discourse : 

"  According  to  the  bill  of  ministers,  religion  is  to  do  all. 
Not  only  its  kingdom  is  of  this  world,  but  this  world  is  its 
kingdom.  The  sceptre  is  passed  into  its  hands,  and  the  priest 
is  sovereign.  Thus,  as  in  politics,  we  are  straitened  between 
absolute  power  and  revolutionary  sedition  ;  so  in  religion,  we 
are  pressed  between  theocracy  and  atheism." 

And  this  other  passage,  how  beautiful ! 

"  We  have  passed  through  criminal  times ;  we  did  not 
look  for  our  rule  of  conduct  in  the  law,  but  in  our  con- 
sciences. We  have  obeyed  God,  rather  than  men  ;  we  are 
the  same  men  who  have  forged  passports,  and  perhaps  given 
false  testimony,  to  save  the  lives  of  the  innocent.  God  will 
judge  us  in  his  justice  and  his  mercy." 

Where  could  there  be  found  a  livelier  picture  of  the  im- 
morality and  selfishness  of  our  age,  than  in  the  following 
incrimination  ? 

"  The  government,  instead  of  awakening  the  united  ener- 
gies of  the  people,  coldly  relegates  each  to  the  recesses  of 


142  THE     RESTORATION. 

his  individual  helplessness.  Our  fathers  knew  nothing  of 
this  deep  humiliation.  They  had  not  to  witness  corruption 
embodied  in  the  public  law  and  held  up  a  spectacle  to 
astonished  youth,  a  lesson  to  manhood." 

We  will  close  these  extracts  with  an  admirable  fragment 
respecting  the  life-tenure  of  judicial  functions. 

"  When  the  Executive  power,  charged  to  institute  the  ju- 
diciary in  the  name  of  the  society,  appoints  a  citizen  to  this 
eminent  office,  it  addresses  him  to  this  effect :  '  Organ  of  the 
law,  be  like  the  law  impassible  !  You  will  be  surrounded 
by  all  sorts  of  passions,  let  them  never  ruffle  your  soul ! — 
Should  my  own  errors,  should  the  influences  that  beset  me, 
and  which  it  is  so  hard  to  entirely  preclude,  extort  from 
me  unjust  orders,  disobey  those  orders,  resist  my  seductions, 
resist  my  threats.  As  soon  as  you  ascend  the  tribunal,  let 
your  heart  retain  no  vestige  of  either  fear  or  hope.  Be 
passionless  like  the  law  which  you  represent !' 

"  The  citizen  replies :  '  I  am  a  mere  man,  and  what 
you  enjoin  is  above  humanity.  You  are  too  strong,  and 
I  am  too  weak  :  I  will  surely  succumb  in  this  unequal 
struggle.  You  will  misconceive  the  motives  of  my  resist- 
ance, and  will  punish  it.  If  you  would  have  me  rise  above 
my  infirmities,  you  must  protect  me  at  the  same  time  against 
myself  and  against  you.  Help  therefore  my  weakness ; 
free  me  from  the  temptations  of  fear  and  of  hope  ;  promise 
that  I  shall  not  be  removed  from  ofRce,  unless  upon  convic- 
tion of  having  betrayed  the  duties  which  you  impose  upon 
me.' 

"  The  Executive  hesitates  ;  it  is  the  nature  of  power  to 
divest  itself  reluctantly  of  the  exercise  of  its  will.  Enlight- 
ened at  length  by  experience  respecting  its  real  interests, 
and  subdued  by  the  ever  increasing  force  of  circumstances, 
it  says  to  the  judge  :    '  You  shall  be  unamoveable  !'  " 

Subjects,  apothegms,  thoughts,  style,  all  that  is  of  a  time 
gone  by  and  a  peculiar  man.  M.  Royer-Collard  has  pur- 
sued through  the  vicissitudes  of  men  and  things,  the  dream 
of  his  favorite  form  of  government.     He  pursues  it  still. 


RO  YER-COLL  AUD.  143 

The  storms  which  have  lonjT  agitated  his  life  have  fatigued 
its  polemical  ardor,  but  have  confirmed  him  in  his  opinions. 
He  thinks  he  sees,  in  the  sudden  revolutions  of  our  country, 
the  trials  and  the  teachinirs  of  a  Providence  which  chastises 
people  and  kings.  He  holds  that  there  is  a  moral  law 
which  rules  the  world  of  intelligences,  as  there  are  physical 
laws  which  govern  the  phenomena  of  nature.  M.  Royer- 
Collard  has  been  a  sincere,  but  a  systematic,  legitimist. 
For  him,  legitimacy  was,  by  the  antiquity  of  its  institution, 
the  venerableness  of  its  associations,  and  the  breadth  and 
depth  of  its  foundation,  the  most  authoritative  expression  of 
the  social  order  ;  but  he  was  for  tempering  this  order — the 
excess  of  which  constituted  despotism — by  the  austere  con- 
ditions of  liberty.  He  made  himself,  of  his  dynastic  doc- 
trines, a  sort  of  imposing  and  rationalized  religion.  He  ar- 
ranged his  plan  of  government,  as  we  do  a  thesis  in  philos- 
ophy ;  a  chimera,  which  is  more  commendable  for  beauty 
than  for  use;  for  the  mysterious  and  strong  alliances  of  the 
past  and  the  present,  of  liberty  and  power,  under  the  sceptre 
of  a  dynasty  of  immemorial  origin,  are  unintelligible  to  the 
vulgar.  Besides,  they  are  constantly  breaking,  in  the  appli- 
cation. The  equilibrium  of  this  fiction  is  incessantly  de- 
ranged by  the  irregular  current  of  human  affairs.  That 
such  structures  might  be  kept  up,  it  would  be  necessary  that 
there  should  never  be  clouds  in  the  firmament,  nor  wind  in 
the  air,  and  these  are  card  castles,  which  tumble  at  the  least 
breath. 

What  does  honor  to  Royer-CoUard  beyond  all  the  other 
parliamentary  celebrities,  is  to  have  strictly  conformed  his 
conduct  to  his  maxims.  Great  and  rare  praise  for  our  times, 
to  be  simple  in  manner,  not  ambitious,  disinterested,  an  hon- 
est man  ! 

We  may  add  that  the  virtu^  of  M.  Royer-Collard  has 
shone  not  only  by  its  own  splendor,  but  also  by  the  contrast 
with  the  corruption  of  his  disciples. 

While  those  little  college  Greeks  who  lauded  so  loudly 
the  poverty  of  Diogenes  and  the  simplicity  of  Plato,  have 


144  THE     RESTORATION. 

seized  upon  the  offices  of  emolument  and  have  filled  their 
wallet,  Royer-Collard,  a  philosopher  of  action  as  well  as  of 
words,  has  been  seen  to  withdraw  himself  modestly  aloof, 
to  decline  the  honors  of  the  Council  of  State,  of  the  Peerage 
and  of  the  Ministry,  and  to  sequester  himself  in  the  solitary 
and  profound  observation  of  events. 

Accordingly,  in  practice,  the  disciples  of  M.  Royer-Col- 
lard  very  soon  left  him  there  with  his  philosophy,  all  alone 
on  his  sofa.  Royer-Collard,  who  loves  order,  but  not  to  the 
extreme  of  despotism,  began  then  to  return  towards  liberty. 
It  was  a  little  late,  for  liberty  had  ceased  to  exist. 

Why  has  it  so  ceased  ?  It  is  that  power  has  never  been, 
in  France,  enough  restrained  in  the  extravagant  impetuosity 
of  its  caprices.  It  has  always  strayed  into  the  abyss,  not 
that  it  was  pushed,  but  because  it  threw  itself  in  of  itself. 
The  old  Monarchy,  the  Empire,  the  Directory,  the  Restora- 
tion have  perished  one  after  another  by  the  excess  of  their 
power.  The  fault  in  this  country  is  always  to  govern  too 
much,  to  administer  too  much,  to  legislate  too  much,  to  regu- 
late too  much.  Liberty  tries  at  the  outset  to  keep  the  flood 
within  its  banks,  but  it  breaks  through  them,  infiltrates  and 
escapes  so  quickly,  that  there  soon  remains  nothing  either  of 
its  noise  or  its  waters. 

It  must  also  be  owned  that  we  are  the  most  forgetful  of 
mankind.  As  soon  as  they  return  to  us,  we  applaud  with  a 
sort  of  frenzy  those  whom  were  probated  with  indignation. 
Parties  in  France  have  not  the  least  rancor.  There  are 
no  roots  to  their  admiration  or  their  hatred.  It  is  no  doubt 
a  very  amiable  quality  of  our  nation,  this  species  of  heed- 
lessness. But  would  it  not  evince  that,  if  we  are  fitted  for 
all  the  other  sciences,  by  the  mobility  of  our  genius,  we  are 
scarcely  adapted  for  political  science,  which  demands  more 
of  application,  perseverance  and  steadiness  ? 

M.  Royer-Collard  believes,  above  all,  in  the  doctrine  of  le- 
.  gitimacy.     He  regrets  the  displacement  of  the  ancient  foun- 
dations of  the  monarchy.     He  took  no  part,  either  by  coun- 
sel, or  action,  or  feeling,  in  the   Revolution  of  the  Three 


ROYEU-COLLARD.  145 

Days.  He  has  advocated  the  succession  of  the  peerage. 
He  has  opposed  the  extension  of  the  electoral  privilege.  He 
has  shed  the  tears  of  his  eloquence  upon  the  grave  of  the 
great  Perrier,  the  fatal  friend  of  July.  He  belongs  neither 
to  the  extreme  Left,  nor  to  the  dynastic  Left,  nor  even  to  the 
Third  party.  He  at  first  voted  the  budgets,  the  laws,  and  the 
measures  of  the  government  dictated  as  they  were  by  fear 
and  designed  for  corruption ;  and  it  was  necessary  that  the 
cup  of  iniquity  should  be  full  to  the  brim,  to  bring  him  to 
cry  aloud  to  them  that  it  was  going  to  run  over.  And  you, 
deputies  of  the  Opposition,  forgetful  of  all  this  his  past  ca- 
reer which  is  not  conformable  with  yours,  you  call  Royer- 
Collard  the  apostle  of  liberty !  But  M.  Royer-Collard  him- 
self does  not  accept  this  democratic  apostleship.  He  does 
not  wish  to  be  thought  to  have  been  what  he  has  not  been, 
nor  to  appear  what  he  is  not.  He  wishes  to  be  left  with  his 
proper  character,  with  his  original  position,  with  his  public 
conduct,  his  doctrines,  his  regrets,  with  his  life  quite  legiti- 
mist ;  and  although  we  conceive  the  government  of  our 
country  in  a  different  manner,  that  life  is  sufficiently  honor- 
able  for  us  to  leave  it  to  go  on  to  the  close  in  its  oonscien- 
tious  and  spotless  integrity. 

13 


116  THE      RESTORATION, 


MANUEL, 

The  French  Empire  revolved  around  Napoleon,  as  the 
circumference  around  its  axis.  Alone,  he  directed  his  ar- 
mies on  the  field  of  battle.  Alone,  in  the  seclusion  of  his 
closet,  he  made  and  unmade  his  leagues  and  treaties.  Alone, 
he  dispatched  his  orders  to  the  Prefects  of  the  Interior. 
Alone,  he  wrote  political  dissertations  in  the  newspapers, 
then  subject  to  censorship.  Alone,  he  spoke  through  his 
emissaries,  in  the  mute  assemblies  of  the  Legislative  body 
and  the  Senate.  So  that  it  might  well  be  said,  there  was  in 
the  whole  Empire  no  other  general,  no  other  diplomatist,  no 
other  administrator,  no  other  publicist,  no  other  orator  but 
Napoleon. 

Accordingly,  when  the  Tribune  became  again  free,  and  the 
barriers  of  eloquence  were  removed,  our  parliamentary  ora- 
tors advanced  upon  the  course  but  gropingly,  and  like  men 
disused  to  public  speaking.  They  were  constrained  in  their 
movements  ;  they  tried  their  voice  which  rendered  them  but 
feeble  and  common  sounds. 

Manuel  appeared.  •  ^ 

Manuel  was  tall,  had  a  pale  and  melancholy  countenance, 
an  accent  provincial  but  sonorous,  and  a  remarkable  sim- 
plicity of  manners. 

His  manner  was  to  untie  difficulties  rather  than  cut  them. 
He  wound,  with  incomparable  dexterity,  around  each  prop- 
osition. He  interrogated  it,  he  handled  it  all  over,  he 
sounded  it  so  to  speak  in  its  inmost  recesses,  to  examine 
what  it  contained,  and  then  explained  it  to  the  Assembly, 
without  omission  and  without  ostentation.  He  was  a  man 
of  lofty  reason,  natural  and  without  pretension,  always  mas- 
ter of  himself,  brilliant  and  easy  in  language,  skilled  in  the 
art  of  exposing,  of  abstracting  and  of  concluding.  These 
qualities  delighted  the  Chamber  of  Representatives. 


MANUEL.  147 

We  must  not  think  that,  when  political  tempests  are  rag- 
ing, an  orator  of  excessive  vehemence  always  obtains  sway 
over  assemblies  ;  for  he  pushes,  ordinarily,  towards  extreme 
resolutions,  and  if  he  pleases  the  energetic,  he  alarms  the 
timid,  who  are  always  the  most  numerous.  As  these  imag- 
ine they  see,  in  the  dark,  swords  suspended  over  their  heads, 
snares  sown  under  their  feet,  and  black  treacheries  beset 
them  on  every  side,  they  like  speakers  of  sincerity  whom 
they  can  confide  in  and  believe.  As  they  are  affected  with 
a  trembling  of  the  limbs,  they  love  to  take  refuge  under  the 
shelter  of  serene  and  firm  souls.  As  their  judging  powers 
are  not  vigorous,  they  like  to  be  presented  the  questions  of 
debate  all  ready  solved.     Thus  did  Manuel. 

When  he  saw,  after  the  abdication  of  Napoleon,  that  the 
executive  authority  knew  not  in  whose  name  to  deliver  its 
commands,  that  civil  war  threatened  to  break  out  in  the  midst 
of  the  foreign  war,  that  the  Chamber  of  Representatives  it- 
self was  broken  into  fractions,  and  that,. impelled  by  a  thou- 
sand contrary  winds,  each  acted  at  random,  and  inclined, 
some  for  the  Bourbons,  some  for  the  Republic,  some  for  the 
Duke  of  Orleans,  some  for  the  Emperor's  son,  Manuel  in- 
voked the  choice  of  the  Army,  the  safety  of  the  Country, 
and  the  text  of  the  Constitution  in  favor  of  Napoleon  II. 

The  Assembly  hailed  this  proposition  with  enthusiasm. 
It  felt  obliged  to  him  for  having  relieved  it  from  an  embar- 
rassing perplexity,  and  restored  it  to  that  unity,  so  necessary 
to  all  Assemblies,  especially  in  a  season  of  crisis. 

Manuel  was  appointed  to  report  the  plan  of  a  Constitution  ; 
a  commission  of  peril,  a  charge  of  confidence,  a  political 
testament,  which,  in  the  name  of  the  dying  Chamber,  he 
drew  up  for  posterity.  He  pursued  nobly  its  discussion 
amid  the  balls  and  shells  that  whizzed  about  his  ears.  He 
called  the  citizens  to  arms.  When  all  was  lost,  and  the 
Prussian  cannon  was  already  roaring  on  the  bridge  of  Jena, 
Manuel,  intrepid  and  calm,  repeated  from  the  height  of  the 
tribune,  those  words  of  Mirabeau  :  "  We  will  not  leave  this 
hall  but  by  the  force  of  bayonets." 


148  THE     RESTORATION. 

Manuel  was  the  most  considerable  and  almost  the  only 
orator  of  the  Chamber  of  Representatives.  The  confidence 
of  that  Chamber  would  have  placed  him  at  the  head  of  the 
government,  under  the  minority  of  Napoleon  II. 

His  arrival  to  the  Chambers  of  the  Restoration  was  pre- 
ceded by  a  colossal  reputation.  Ordinarily,  those  exces- 
sively trumpeted  names  do  not  sustain  themselves,  and  dis- 
gust soon  succeeds  to  enthusiasm.  Manuel,  besides,  was 
internally  undermined  by  a  painful  malady,  which,  some 
time  after,  carried  him  to  the  grave  ;  and  under  the  pressure 
of  its  anguish,  his  fine  faculties  lost  something  of  their  force 
and  splendor. 

A  ministerialist  liberal  and  moderate  during  the  Hun- 
dred-Days, Manuel  became,  during  the  Restoration,  one  of 
the  tribunes  of  the  Opposition.  He  served  it  with  all  the 
weight  of  his  character  and  talent.  As  he  was  rather  obsti- 
nate than  impetuous,  he  withstood,  in  the  vanguard,  the  final 
charges  of  the  enemy.  As  he  had  more  vigor  of  reasoning 
than  oratorical  vehemence,  he  argued  every  thesis  minutely 
and  turned  against  themselves,  with  equal  vivacity  and  pre- 
cision, the  citations  of  his  adversaries.  However  completely 
closed  the  discussion,  he  would  always  find  means  of  enter- 
ing it  on  some  side  or  other,  and  renewed  the  contest  with 
extraordinary  subtlety  of  dialectics  and  abundance  of  ampli- 
fication. 

Manuel  was  the  most  remarkable  improvisator  of  the 
Left  side.  His  diction  was  entirely  parliamentary,  not 
charged  with  ambitious  ornaments,  but  free  from  incorrect- 
ness, not  remarkably  vehement,  but  also  without  laxity. 
Perhaps  he  was  a  little  too  prolix,  a  little  diffuse,  without 
ceasing  however  to  be  quite  clear,  but  apt  to  retrace  his 
steps  and  repeat  himself,  like  all  speakers  of  extreme  fa- 
cility. 

Sometimes  he  delivered  his  opinion  in  writing  upon  mat- 
ters of  finance.  His  speeches  are  well  composed,  but -with- 
out large  views,  without  profundity,  and  without  style. 
Manuel,  like  most  extemporizers,  could  rapidly  appropriate 


MANUEL.  149 

the  ideas  of  others,  and  reproduce  them  in  a  skilful  and  dis- 
criminative order.  But  he  was  neither  administrator,  nor 
philosopher,  nor  financier,  nor  economist.  Since  his  expul- 
sion, fed  and  enriched  by  substantial  studies,  he  might  have 
re-entered  with  treasures  of  knowledge  upon  the  legislative 
scene. 

Two  men  incurred  the  antipathies  in  a  peculiar  degree  of 
the  two  adverse  parties  :  de  Serre  the  antipathies  of  the  Left, 
after  his  abjuration  ;  Manuel,  the  antipathies  of  the  Right,  at 
all  times. 

At  that  period,  the  parties  were  in  flagrant  hostility  to 
each  other.  'Ihe  Emigration  and  the  Revolution,  aristocracy 
and  democracy,  equality  and  privilege,  sat  in  the  Chamber 
fronting  each  other,  and  hated  each  other  with  a  deadly 
hatred.  Every  sittinsj  was  filled  with  little  else  than  subtle 
and  long-winded  dissertations  upon  faction  and  parties,  and 
while  protesting  with  the  lips  the  utmost  respect  for  the  in- 
tentions of  adversaries,  what  was  most  incriminated  in  the 
heart  was  these  very  intentions.  The  truth — now  that  pos- 
terity has  arrived  for  them — the  truth  may  now  be  spoken 
respecting  those  parties.  It  is,  that  they  were  all  equally 
acting  a  part.  The  royalists  wanted  the  King  without  a 
Charter  ;  the  liberals  the  Charter  without  the  King.  This 
was  the  sum  of  what  was  true  or  serious  at  the  bottom  of 
the  parliamentary  debates  ',  the  rest  was  accident,  stage- 
effect,  mere  talk.  Finally,  and  after  fifteen  years  of  scene- 
shifting,  the  actors  and  spectators  got  tired  of  expecting,  and 
it  became  imperative  to  disclose  the  clue  of  the  comedy. 
The  King  without  the  Charter,  means  the  Ordinances  ;  the 
Charter  without  the  King  means  the  Revolution. 

Manuel  twined  himself  subtly  around  the  Charter,  as  a 
serpent  does  about  a  tree  which  has  but  the  green  and  flour- 
ishing appearance  of  life,  but  is  dead  within.  He  com- 
pressed it  in  his  folds,  he  tortured  it,  and  would  have  it  ab- 
solutely render  up  what  it  did  not  contain.  In  our  day, 
these  continual  calls  to  order,  with  interminable  speeches 
about  the  strict  or  liberal  construction  of  the  Charter,  those 

13* 


150  THE     RESTORATION. 

imputations  of  constitutional  treason,  those  essays  of  meagre' 
metaphysics,  would  fatigue  the  auditors.     But  at  that  time, 
we  were  new  to  representative  government,  and  wished  to 
know  through  curiosity,  if  really  there  was  something  at  the 
bottom  of  all  its  pretension. 

The  ministers,  who  love  to  enjoy  the  realities  of  power, 
are  ahvays  in  haste  to  finish.  Manuel  waged  against  them 
a  war  of  temporization.  He  annoyed  them  at  the  beginning 
of  the  discussion  with  his  attacks,  and  at  the  end  with  his 
repetitions.  He  would  send  the  president  amendment  after 
amendment,  and  under  pretext  of  developing  them,  would  re- 
enter upon  the  main  question  and  extend  its  ground.  Defeated 
upon  the  amendment,  he  fell  back  upon  the  sub-amendment. 
He  manoBuvered  thus  in  a  thousand  ways,  now  advancing, 
now  retiring,  defending  like  a  skilful  general  every  position 
foot  to  foot,  and  when  he  saw  himself  about  to  be  captured, 
he  had  himself  blown  .into  the  air  with  powder. 

Manuel  proved  the  most  judicious  man  of  his  party. 
He  did  not  allow  himself  to  be  misled  by  imagination,  nor 
dizzied  by  enthusiasm,  that  other  French  malady.  He 
weighed  things  exactly  at  what  they  were  worth,  and  his 
vision  was  so  perspicacious  and  so  precise,  that  he  foresaw 
and  foretold  that  a  Revolution  would  proceed  from  the  14th 
article  of  the  Charter. 

He  had  also  a  very  lively  sentiment  of  good-will  towards 
the  laboring  class,  and  it  is  perhaps  on  account  of  this  secret 
sympathy  which  binds  the  masses  to  their  defender,  that  his 
name  amongst  them  remains  so  popular.  The  torch  of  de- 
mocracy threw  from  time  to  time  along  his  pathway  a  few 
of  its  rays,  and  it  is  by  the  light  of  its  gleaming  that  he  has 
touched  upon  almost  all  the  great  questions  of  the  future. 

The  Right  listened  to  Manuel  with  visible  impatience.  It 
covered  him  with  its  contempt  and  its  insults.  Sometimes 
it  would  shrug  its  shoulders,  sometimes  turn  its  back.  Some- 
times it  groaned  in  murmurings  that  stifled  his  voice ;  at 
times  it  descended  angrily  from  bench  to  bench,  until  it 
reached  the  foot  of  the  tribune,  taunting  him  with  the  bit- 


MANUEL.  151 

terest  sarcasms  and  epithets  the  most  outrageous.  Manuel, 
impassive  amid  the  most  violent  storms,  kept  the  serenity  of 
his  countenance  and  soul  unruffled.  He  received  the  shock 
unmoved,  folded  his  arms,  and  waited  till  silence  was  re- 
stored, to  resume  his  discourse. 

He  was  a  man  of  calm  intrepidity  and  a  patriotic  and 
warm  heart,  with  manners  the  most  affable,  temper  the  most 
gentle,  a  rectitude  of  principle  entirely  natural,  a  reserve 
of  ambition  and  a  modesty  quite  singular.  I  will  add  no- 
thing respecting  his  moral  qualities.  He  was  the  friend  of  ■ 
Lafitte  and  of  Dupont  de  I'Eure.     This  is  praise  enough. 

There  is  much  more  imagination  than  people  think,  in  all 
parties.  They  are  eager  to  live  and  to  establish  themselves, 
not  only  in  the  present  and  the  future  but  also  in  the  past. 
They  recast,  they  dispose  history  at  will,  and  in  the  interest 
of  their  passions.  They  impose,  by  a  stretch  of  fancy,  upon 
some  illustrious  dead,  the  part  of  representing  their  opinion, 
even  when  this  personage  would  by  no  means  have  been 
willing  to  represent  it,  even  when  this  opinion  had  now  lost 
its  vitality  and  almost  its  name.  Thus,  the  Republicans 
will  have  it  that,  under  the  Restoration,  Manuel  had  been 
their  servant.  The  Doctrinarians  of  the  Tuileries  pretend 
that  he  would  now  walk  in  their  ways.  These  are  two 
sheer  illusions.  Manuel  had,  like  millions  of  Frenchmen 
at  this  moment,  the  republican  sentiment  rather  than  repub- 
lican opinions.  He  preferred  openly,  though  free  to  do  the 
contrary,  Napoleon  II.  to  a  republic.  He  used  to  say  : 
"  The  republicans  are  men  n"ot  ripened  by  experience."  And 
elsewhere  :  ''  That  the  republic  might  have  charms  for  men 
of  elevated  soul ;  but  that  it  was  unsuited  to  a  great  people 
in  the  actual  state  of  our  societies."  And  lastly :  "  The 
throne  is  the  guarantee  of  liberty."  Then  again :  "  Lib- 
erty is  inseparable  from  the  throne."  He  declared,  besides, 
for  the  royal  prerogative,  for  the  institution  of  two  Chambers, 
for  a  hereditary  peerage,  for  the  salary  of  the  clergy,  for 
the  administrative  guarantee  of  the  public  functionaries. 

No  more  did  Manuel  belong  to  the  coterie  of  the  Palais- 


J  52  THE      RESTORATION. 

Royal ;  and  os  it  was  sought  to  turn  liis  popularity  to  tho 
advantage  of  a  certain  personage,  Manuel  beset  with  impor- 
tunities dropped  this  exclamation  : 

"  Do  not  speak  to  me  of  that  man  !" 

It  is  an  opinion  quite  common,  that  had  Manuel  lived,  his 
hio-h  experience  would  have  directed  the  founders  of  the 
Revolution  of  July,  would  have  signalized  the  shoals  upon 
which  the  vessel  was  drawn  by  too  confident  pilots,  and 
would  have  made  it  impossible  for  prerogative  to  overflow 
its  banks  and  submerge  the  hopes  of  liberty.  At  all  events, 
noble  deeds  are  to  be  set  above  the  wisest  counsels  and  the 
finest  speeches.  No,  all  the  counsels  that  Manuel  could 
offer  would  not  have  hindered  the  fatality  of  things  from 
taking  its  course  ;  and  as  to  his  discourses,  they  will  pass 
away,  they  are  even  passed  already.  But  so  long  as  civic 
courage — more  rare  a  thousand  times  than  military  cour- 
acre — shall  be  honored  amongst  us,  the  name  of  Manuel 
will  live  in  the  memory  of  Frenchmen. 

It  was  in  1823,  when  all  of  a  sudden  the  patience  of  the 
Right  gave  way.  It  had  already  made  some  noise,  when 
Manuel,  giving  vent  to  the  fnlness  of  his  heart,  expressed 
his  repugnance  for  the  Bourbons.  From  this  instant,  his 
name  lay  on  the  tables  of  proscription.  With  car  erect  and 
arm  uplifted,  his  enemies,  lurking  at  the  corner  of  the  tri- 
bune, watched  and  waylaid  upon  its .  passage  his  every  ex- 
pression. The  tempest  hung  over  his  head.  Scarce  had 
Manuel  sketched  the  indirect  and  veiled  apology  of  the  Con- 
vention,  than  M.  de  la  Bourdonnaie  started  from  his  place 
and  called,  on  gVound  of  indignity,  for  the  expulsion  of  the 
member  from  la  Vendee. 

The  Chamber  punished  Manuel  for  having  praised  the 
Convention  and  it  imitated  him  itself.  It  alienated  public 
opinion,  which  is  a  fault.  It  abused  its  power,  which  is  an 
act  of  cowardice.  It  produced  a  political  crisis,  a  thing 
which  is  the  ruin  of  Chambers  as  of  kings,  even  when  they 
succeed.  It  violated  the  inviolability  of  the  tribune.  It 
enveloped,  in  the  condemnation  of  a  single  expression,  the 


MAP.^UEL.  153 

whole  parliamentary  life  of  Manuel.  It  prosecuted  him 
for  a  tendency.  It  struck  at  the  heart  of  freedom  of  speech, 
as  it  had  just  done  Jby  the  press.  What  was  strangest,  in 
this  strange  proceeding,  was  to  see  the  deputies  of  privilege 
arrogate  the  right  of  representing  France  and  speaking  in 
her  name.  Poor  France  !  They  all  assume  to  speak  for 
you,  those  of  former  days,  those  of  the  present  day.  When 
then,  to  silence  them,  wilt  thou  speak  for  once  thyself? 

The  great  character  of  Manuel  was  not  untrue  to  itself  in 
the  debate.  He  wore  that  placidity  of  countenance,  which 
irritated  his  weak  and  violent  enemies.  He  defended  him- 
self with  an  eloquent  simplicity,  and  France  has  retained 
his  words  : 

"  I  declare  that  I  reconrnize  in  no  one  here  the  riffht  to 
accuse  or  to  judge  me.  Moreover,  I  look  around  for  judges 
and  I  find  but  accusers.  I  do  not  expect  an  act  of  justice, 
it  is  to  an  act  of  vengeance  that  I  resign  myself.  I  profess 
to  respect  the  established  authorities  ;  but  I  respect  still 
more  the  law  by  which  they  have  been  constituted,  and  I 
recognize  in  them  no  power  whatever,  from  the  moment 
that,  in  contempt  of  that  law,  they  usurp  rights  which  it  has 
not  conferred  upon  them. 

"  In  such  a  situation  of  things,  I  know  not  if  submission 
be  an  act  of  prudence  ;  but  I  know  that,  whenever  resist- 
ance is  a  right,  it  becomes  a  duty. 

"  Having  arrived  in  this  Chamber  by  the  will  of  those 
who  had  the  right  to  send  me,  I  cannot  leave  it  but  by  the 
violence  of  those  who  choose  to  arrogate  to  themselves  the 
right  of  excluding  me  ;  and  should  this  resolution  on  my 
part  cost  me  the  last  extreme  of  peril,  I  have  only  to  say 
that  the  field  of  liberty  has  been  sometimes  fertilized  by 
generous  blood." 

Manuel  kept  his  word.  He  maintained  his  rights  to  the 
end,  yielding  only  to  force.  The  hand  of  a  gendarme  had 
to  grapple  him  upon  his  seat  and  tear  him  from  amidst  his 
indignant  friends. 

The  popular  throng,  who  swelled  by  another  immense 


154  THE     RESTORATION. 

crowd,  were  soon  after  to  attend  the  triumph  of  his  obse- 
quies, accompanied  to  his  residence  the  democratic  tribune. 
But  the  multitude  departed,  solitude  and  silence  gathered 
around  the  illustrious  orator.  The  electoral  colleges  of  the 
day  had  the  cowardice  not  to  re-elect  him,  not  to  try  at  least. 
So  true  is  it,  that  there  is  little  civic  spirit  in  France  !  That 
patriotic  services  find  there  but  ungrateful  memories !  That 
renown  the  best  earned  dies  there  quickly  !* 

Meanwhile,  strange  caprices  of  fortune !  he  little  sus- 
pected, this  great  citizen,  when,  ignominiously  expelled  for 
having  spoken  of  the  Convention,  he  left  the  Chamber  like 
a  malefactor  between  two  gendarmes,  that  one  day  the  king 
of  his  dislike,  chased  in  his  turn,  would  have  to  embark  for 
an  eternal  exile ;  that  the  son  of  a  Conventionalist  would 
occupy  the  throne  and  the  bed  of  his  master;  that  the  de- 
puties, who  had  just  proscribed  a  deputy  in  the  name  of 
the  electors,  would  themselves  too,  be  proscribed  by  the  same 
electors  and  excluded  from  the  temple  of  the  laws,  and  that, 
upon  the  frontispiece  of  another  temple  dedicated  to  her  il- 
lustrious men  by  a  grateful  country,  the  immortal  chisel  of 
David  would  grave,  in  front  of  the  figure  of  Napoleon,  the 
emblem  of  military  courage,  the  figure  of  Manuel,  the  em- 
blem of  civic  courao;e. 

*  The  dereliction  is  not  ascribable  to  "public  spirit,"  strictly  speak- 
ing, with  which  it  might  entirely  consist"  to  countenance  individual 
oppression  in  certain  cases,  though  the  expulsion  of  Manuel  was  not 
an  instance  assuredly.  Manuel  would  no  doubt  have  been  reinstated 
had  the  suffrage  been  universal  in  France.  But  it  would  be,  possi- 
bly, from  a  less  lofty  and  discerning  motive  than  public  spirit. 
Something  of  pavty  tactics  perhaps,  which  would  thus  attach  to  it- 
self the  devotion  and  the  desperateness  of  its  followers.  Something 
more,  probably,  of  that  popular  spite,  which  in  the  very  country  in 
question  lead  to  the  vindication  from  oppression,  of  those  incorruptible 
patriots,  Marat  and  Robespierre ;  and  which,  in  every  country,  be- 
sides thinking  of  itself  instinctively  whenever  the  weak  is  assailed 
by  the  strong,  loves  moreover  to  display  its  defiance  to  those  who  ar- 
rogate the  distinction  of  superiors.  Demagogues  assure  us  indeed, 
that  it  is  the  people's  love  of  "  fair  play,"  their  "  gratitude  "  &c.,  which 
"would  not  greatly  mend  the  cage :  the  former  would  oblige  to  tak'? 


MANUEL.  155 

Manuel  bore  his  ostracism  with  dignity,  but  not  without 
depression,  without  some  regret  for  the  tribune.  "  You  are 
a  man  of  letters,"  said  the  orator  to  Benjamin  Constant,  "  you 
have  your  pen  ;  but  what  remains  to  me  ?" 

There  remained  his  funeral  procession  and  the. Pantheon. 

part  (as  the  people  have  but  too  often  done  in  fact)  indiscriminately, 
■with  the  criminal,  who  has  the  government  all  against  him.  And  as 
to  popular  gratitude,  it  may  claim  some  credit  after  they  have  recon- 
ciled it  with  the  proverbial  wgratitude  of  republics. 

No ;  public  spirit  is  not  only  animated  by  an  ardent  desire  for, 
but  also  guided  by  an  enlightened  and  steady  view  of,  the  public  good. 
And  hence,  in  truth,  the  defect  imputed  to  the  electors  of  France ;  a 
defect,  no  doubt,  common  to  them  with  all  their  kind,  whatever  the 
country  or  the  constitution.  As  yet,  human  nature  seems  to  admit 
of  but  the  wretched  and  mischievous  counterfeit,  which  is  only  the 
brass  of  party  Calculation  with  an  alloy  of  popular  Impulse,  ster- 
lingly  stamped — public  spirit,  the  public  good  ! 

I  have  remarked  upon  this  distinction  because  of  its  special  appli- 
cation to  our  own  country,  where  the  immoral  coui'se  in  question 
seems  to  have  passed  into  a  maxim  of  policy  with  one  at  least  of  the 
parties.  Accordingly,  it  is  the  well-understood  ambition  or  the  tact 
(to  use  a  term  more  appropriately  abject)  of  the  laiowing  ones  to  get 
themselves  somehow  martyred  in  the  '•  cause,"  as  the  surest  road  to 
the  canonization  of  office.  And  the  worse  the  cause,  the  better  the 
claim — doubtless  upon  the  equitable  principle,  that  the  reward  should 
be  proportional  to  the  tret  and  tare  of  conscience. — Tr's.  N. 


ft 


REVOLUTION    OF   JULY. 


I  AM  about  lo  walk  upon  live  coals,  I  am  come  to,  I 
am  going  to  paint  the  orators  of  my  own  time.  Most 
of  these  oratoi's  have  been,  are,  or  will  be  ministers.  They 
have  consequently  flatterers  and  maligners,  friends  and 
enemies.  Not  to  praise  them  enough  is  to  offend  the  friends. 
Not  to  blame  them  enough  is  to  displease  the  enemies. 
What  is  to  be  done?  Be  exclusively  panegyrist  or  exclu- 
sively detractor  ?  Then,  I  should  be  neither  true  nor  just. 
Be  impartial  ?  With  all  my  heart,  when  I  shall  have  been 
shown  a  contemporary,  painter  or  judge  of  public  men.  who 
is  neither  of  the  Centre,  nor  of  the  Third  party,  nor  Demo- 
crat, nor  Dynastic,  nor  Legitimist;  for  if  he  belong  to  one 
or  other  of  these  parties — and  how  should  he  not  ? — he  will 
inevitably  tincture  his  pallet  with  the  colors  of  his  opinions, 
and  thenceforth  he  will  cease  to  be  impartial ;  and  should 
he  censure  me  for  not  seeino-  thino-s  as  he  does,  I  miofht 
reproach  him  in  turn  because  he  does  not  see  them  as  I  do. 
What !  you  are  displeased  that  I  should  judge  you  accord- 
ing to  my  principles,  and  you  pretend  to  judge  me  accord- 
ing  to  yours  !  There  is  but  one  arbiter  possible  between 
you  and  me,  and  who  is  that  ?  Posterity  ;  if  it  deigns  to 
conern  itself  about  such  trifles  as  our  present  orators  and 
Timon  their  painter.  Posterity  alone  is  impartial.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  posterity,  which  has  seen  neither 
the  things  nor  tlic  men  which  it  too  would  essay  to  paint, 
can  it  produce  a  likeness,  and  is  not  there  always  in  its 


REVOLUTION      OF     JULY.  l57 

pictures  something  of  imagination  and  of  illusion  ?  Much 
more,  it  seeks  itself  with  curiosity  for  the  portraits  taken 
by  contemporaries,  from  nature.  It  studies  them,  admires 
them  and  prefers  them  to  its  own,  and  I  maintain  that  it 
does  well. 

I  do  not  therefore  by  any  means  pique  myself  upon  being 
impartial  towards  the  political  orators  of  my  time.  I  would 
not  be  so  if  I  could,  and  1  could  not  if  I  would.  I  do  not 
pique  myself  upon  being  impartial,  for  I  would  thus  avow 
that  good  and  evil  are  indifferent  to  me ;  that  governments 
may  be  conducted  by  any  sort  of  regulations  ;  that  the  most 
opposite  systems  are  all  equally  good,  if  only  they  succeed; 
that  there  is  neither  true  nor  false  in  politics,  neither  virtue 
nor  vice  ki  statesmen  ;  neither  grandeur  nor  debility  in  the 
constitution  of  empires,  nor  lessons  in  history,  nor  experi- 
ence in  facts,  nor  morality  in  actions,  nor  consequences  in 
principles. 

No,  I  am  not  impartial,  or  rather  eclectic,  after  this 
fashion,  and  I  believe  in  God  in  politics,  as  in  everything 
else. 

Let  me  be  permitted  here,  for  I  stand  in  need  of  it,  to 
guard  myself  against  the  self-delusions  of  vanity,  the  mut- 
tered recriminations  and  interested  suo-o-estions  of  gentlemen 

Do  O 

among  the  orators  who  might  pretend  that  I  had  viewed 
them  with  eyes  completely  blinded  by  passion,  spite,  anger 
or  some  other  visual  disturbance  of  this  kind,  and  that  I  had 
travestied  them,  merely  because  I  did  not  bepl aster  them 
with  a  ridiculous  excess  of  praise.  Besides,  although  it  be 
hardly  ever  becoming  to  talk  of  oneself,  I  am  bound  to  tell 
the  public  who  have  come  to  visit  my  gallery  with  so  much 
eagerness  and  good  will,  in  what  disposition,  political  and 
mental,  I  was  when  1  painted  our  orators. 

I  am  a  radical,  but  a  radical  more  favorable  to  a  cen- 
tralized and  strong  government  than  most  of  those  who  call 
themselves  conservatives.  I  am  for  liberty,  but  by  the 
constraints  of  logic,  and  not  the  violence  of  daggers.  I  am 
also  for  power,  by  the  intelligent,  firm,  humane  and  just 

14 


158  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

exercise  of  authority,  and  not  by  the  brute  force  of  oppres- 
sion and  arbitrariness.  I  care  no  more  for  despotism  than 
for  anarchy?  no  more  for  anarchy  than  for  despotism. 

1  have  taken  up  my  pencil  without  favor  or  hatred.  I 
have  received  from  those  who  have  sat  to  me  neither  bene- 
fits nor  injuries.  They  have  offered  me  nothing,  I  have 
asked  them  for  nothing. 

My  duty  and  my  principles  have  led  me  to  decline  the 
honors  of  the  Bench,  of  the  Council  of  State  and  of  the 
Ministry,  ten  years  ago,  wiien  I  was  at  the  age  of  ambition. 
I  have  passed  that  age.  All  I  now  desire  is  to  remain  in 
the  obscure  and  solitary  position  into  which  I  have  volun- 
tarily retired.  I  would  easily  content  myself  to  be  still 
less  prominent.  Is  there  in  our  days  a  post,  however  high, 
which  is  worth  a  wise  man's  wish  ?  And  then,  in  office, 
there  is  so  little  time  left  to  live  !  and  in  the  present  day 
such  a  wear  and  tear  of  conscience,  the  sole  one  of  all  the 
goods  of  earth  which  has  for  me  any  great  value. 

Unquestionably,  I  do  not  despair  of  the  future  of  my 
country,  because  after  all,  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the 
voice  of  God,  and  God,  it  must  needs  be,  at  last  will  speak. 
But  it  is  not  my  fault  that  I  have  lost  all  illusion,  respect- 
ing the  men  of  the  present  time.  I  have  no  confidence  in 
one  of  them  even  of  my  own  party,  and  in  that  dust  of 
all  parties  I  look  in  vain  for  any  man  who  represents  any- 
thing. 

There  is  in.  every  member  of  parliament  two  characters, 
the  orator  and  the  politician  ;  the  orator  I  have  portrayed  ac- 
cording to  my  taste  as  artist,  which  may  well  not  accord,  I  ad- 
mit, with  the  taste  of  others,  and  especially  the  orators,  a  race, 
vainglorious  above  all  races.  The  politician  I  have  judged  by 
his  opinions,  when  he  had  any,  by  mine,  as  a  term  of  com- 
parison. 

It  is  now  ten  years  since  I  began  to  spread  my  canvass  on 
the  easel  and  charge  my  pallet,  and  I  continue  still  to  paint 
without  intermission. 

The  politics  internal  and  external  of  a  free  people  are  novv 


I 


REVOLUTION     OF     JULY.  159 

no  more  to  be  looked  for  in  the  intrigues  of  courts,  but  in  the 
causes  and  the  effects  of  parlaimentary  debates  :  to  portray 
the  orators,  then,  is  to  write  history. 

It  was  my  design  to  make  this  a  serious  work,  and  which 
should  endure  and  be  connected  with  the  study  of  our  revo- 
lutions,  and  conducive  to  a  more  exact  and  true  knowledg-e 
of  the  affairs  of  my  time.  Shall  I  have  succeeded  ?  I  should 
think  so,  if  1  were  not  liable  to  deceive  myself;  and,  at  all 
jevents,  it  would  not  be  for  me  to  say  it. 

All  I  can  say,  is,  that  I  have  been  placed,  to  observe  my 
models,  in  the  best  conditions  wherein  a  painter  has  ever 
been.  I  have  seen,  I  have  heard  General  Foy,  Benjamin 
Constant,  Manuel,  Royer-Collard,  Casimir  Perrier,  Villele, 
de  Serre,  and  in  addition,  I  have  undertaken  what  no  one  in 
France  had  ever  done  before  me,  and  what  probably  will 
never  be  done  again  ;  I  have  read  and  re-read,  one  by  one, 
the  whole  cart-loads  of  their  speeches. 

I  have  witnessed  the  gathering  parliamentary  storms,  not 
in  the  clouds  of  Olympus,  but  at  the  foot  of  the  tribune,  and 
have  heard  the  thunder  burst,  and  the  liijhtning,  conducted 
by  an  electric  thread,  disappear  sometimes  afar  from  the  pub- 
lic, in  the  chamber  of  conference,  a  few  paces  from  where 
I  sat. 

I  have  seen,  alone  among  so  many  foreign  spectators,  the 
actors  of  our  political  dramas,  dress  and  undress  themselves 
behind  the  scenes.  I  have  been  present,  and  not  another 
painter  except  me,  at  the  dumb  play  of  their  pantomime,  at 
their  half-confidences — those  exchanges  of  gestures,  of  looks, 
of  smiles — those  emotions  scarce  perceptible  of  spite,  of 
embarrassment,  of  shame,  of  anger — those  comings  and  go- 
ings of  ministerial  aid-de-camps — those  dispatchings  of  notes 
under  hand  and  under  the  table — those  buzzings,  orders  and 
passwords — those  changes  of  countenance,  those  sudden 
tackings,  those  mutual  stabs,  those  devices  of  warfare  and 
of  comedy,  which  explain  better  a  situation  of  an  orator  than 
all  the  studied  discourses  in  the  world,  and  which  always 


160  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

escape  the  ears  and  the  eyes  of  the  Chamber  and  the  re- 
porters, however  sagacious. 

Yes,- 1  know  these  orators  well,  for  I  have  lived  in  close 
intimacy  with  their  public  life.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
have  fastened  against  myself  the  door  of  their  private  life, 
and  have  had  no  desire  even  to  look  through  the  key-hole. 

It  is  not  the  praise  of  friends  that  flatters  us  most,  but  that 
of  enemies ;  and  v/e  are  by  so  much  the  more  sensible  to  it, 
that  it  comes  to  us  mixed  with  censure  and  criticism,  and 
that  its  sincerity  is  thus  the  better  attested.  But,  sincerity 
is  the  quality  which  charms  us  the  most  in  others,  even 
when  we  do  not  possess  it  ourselves. 

The  modern  orators  know  well,  and,  besides,  they  feel  it 
instinctively,  that  their  effusions  pass  away  like  the  sound 
of  their  words, — that  if  they  shine  with  the  splendor  of 
the  meridian  sun,  they  must  go  down,  at  the  end  of  the  day, 
behind  the  horizon,  into  a  nio;ht  without  morninnr  or  mor- 
row  ;  and  they  hold,  they  cling,  as  they  can,  to  that  life  of 
remembrance  and  of  renown  which  escapes  them  on  all  sides. 

Of  what  avail  is  it,  by  a  posthumous  respect,  to  print  rich 
editions  of  the  speeches  of  General  Foy,  Casimir  Perrier, 
Benjamin  Constant,  and  so  many  others,  if  nobody  touches 
them  ?  People  no  more  read  orators  in  their  works.  They 
are  now  read  but  in  their  portraits. 

Doubtless,  to  live  by  shreds,  by  fragments,  to  live  in  lit- 
tle more  than  the  name,  to  live  without  his  works,  without 
his  words,  is  scarcely  to  live  to  an  orator.  But  it  is,  at 
least,  not  to  die  entirely,  and  he  ought  to  be  thankful  to  the 
helpful  hand  which  makes  an  opening  in  his  tomb  and  lets 
in  upon  his  brow  even  a  single  ray  of  light. 

Let  each  of  those  ^ho  live  still  and  whom  I  have  drawn, 
interrogate  himself;  let  him  examine  himself  in  his  own 
mirror,  and  then. in  my  portraiture,  and  let  him  say,  his 
hand  upon  his  heart,  if  he  does  not  think  it  a  good  likeness. 

I  am  firmly  persuaded  he  would ;  and  it  seems  to  me,  if 
I  had  been  myself  an  orator,  at  the  risk  of  the  conse- 
quences to  me,  I  should  wish  to  be  painted  by  Timon. 


MARNIER -PAGES.  161 


GARNIER-PAGES. 

Alas  !  how  much  I  have  already  lived.  I  have  seen 
Manuel  perish  amid  the  ungrateful  desertion  of  his  constit- 
uents and  his  fi'iends.  I  have  witnessed  the  death  of  La- 
fayette, who  was  not  yet  at  the  end  of  his  green  old-age,  and 
who,  by  his  majestic  and  simple  rebuke,  would  have  pre- 
vented the  laws  of  September.  I  have  seen  Carrel  fall  in 
the  spring-tide  of  life  ;  Carrel,  the  brilliant  knight  of  de- 
mocracy, the  flower  of  our  hopes,  the  pen  and  the  sword  of 
the  national  party.  I  have  seen  extinguished  Garnier-Pages, 
who,  had  he  sooner  quitted  the  vitiated  air  of  the  Chamber, 
and  the  deadly  agitation  of  our  fruitless  struggles,  would 
have  recovered  his  strength  and  health  beneath  the  milder 
climate  of  the  south  and  in  the  repose  of  study. 

And  I,  the  obscure  companion  of  these  illustrious  men,  I 
can  only  depict  and  admire  them.  1  will  begin  witli  you 
Garnier-Pages,  and  I  owe  you  this  homage  ;  for  you  are  now 
no  more,  and  the  dead  are  so  soon  forgotten  !  for,  besides, 
you  loved  me  and  were  as  unwilling  to  separate  from  me, 
as  I  would  be  to  ever  separate  from  you  !  for  there  was  not 
one  of  your  thoughts  which  was  not  mine  :  like  you,  1  dis- 
dained to  accept  honors  or  power  ;  like  you,  I  loved  the  peo- 
ple ;  like  you,  I  expected  reform,  and  we  had  no  need  of 
communicating  to  one  another  these  sentiments,  or  of  ex- 
pressing these  opinions.  We  formed  together  wishes  so  sin- 
cere and  so  ardent  for  the  union  of  all  the  patriots,  for  the 
aggrandizement  of  our  beloved  France,  for  the  amelioration 
of  the  condition  of  the  poor,  and  for  the  definitive  triumph 
of  democracy  !  Yes,  yours  was  a  great  intellect,  Garnier- 
Pages  !  yes,  yours  was  a  noble  heart !  you  understood  lib- 
erty, you  knew  how  it  should  be  loved  !  more  than  this,  you 
knew  how  it  should  be  served  !  I  shall  see  you  no  more, 
you  whom  I  had  left  so  full  of  life  !  and  when  I  return  to  the 

14* 


162  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

Chamber,  I  shall  find  you  no  more  at  the  extremity  of  our 
solitary  bench  ! 

Attacked  myself,  far  away  from  you,  by  a  malady  not  so 
destructive  as  yours,  I  have  been  unable  to  receive  your 
latest  breathings  and  pay  you  the  duty  of  a  faithful  friend- 
ship ;  but  may  these  lines  which  I  consecrate  to  you,  and 
which  flattery  does  not  dictate,  preserve  your  name  from 
that  flight  of  time  which  passes  on  and  sweeps  us  along,  and 
render  you  still  dearer  to  our  hearts  and  more  regretted  in 
our  memory  ! 

Gamier-Pages  had  the  good  fortune  of  not  undergoing,  as 
a  member  of  parliament,  that  trial  almost  always  fatal  of  the 
passage  through  several  governments.  Had  he  been  deputy 
when  the  Revolution  of  July  broke  out,  would  he  have,  as 
so  many  others  have  done,  exceeded  the  limits  of  his  com- 
mission ?  Would  he  have  quitted  the  battle-field  to  go  pil- 
lage the  dead  ?  Would  he  have  lost,  under  the  touch  of 
power,  that  political  virginity  which  he  kept  to  the  last  with 
a  continence  so  exemplary  ?  I  do  not  think  so.  Garnier- 
Pages  had  the  rarest  of  courages  in  a  country  where  all 
have  personal  bravery,  he  had  the  bravery  of  conscience. 
He  would,  in  case  of  need,  have  sacrificed  more  than  his 
life,  he  would  have  sacrificed  his  popularity ;  and  this  is 
what  I  particularly  esteem  him  for,  for  I  should  make  little 
account  of  the  orator  or  the  writer,  who  could  not,  upon  occa- 
sion, resist  the  prejudices  and  the  precipitation  of  his  own 
party.  Truth  should  be  spoken  to  friends  still  more  than  to 
enemies,  and  he  who  courts  popularity  at  any  rate,  is  but  a 
coward,  a  demagogue  or  a  blockhead. 

Simple  in  manners,  of  upright  life,  and  a  democrat  austere 
without  being  extravagant ;  faithful  to  his  principles,  sin- 
cere, disinterested,  generous,  inoffensive ;  such  was  the  man 
in  the  moral  and  political  aspect.  As  orator,  he  excelled, 
by  the  sage  economy  of  his  plan,  the  simpleness  of  his  dia- 
lectics and  the  ingenious  quickness  of  his  repartees.  He 
was  deficient  perhaps  in  that  elevated,  copious  and  ample 
vigor,  which  sustains  the  discourse,  and  leaves  the  adversary 


GARNIER-PAGES.  163 

no  lime  to  retreat  or  respire  beneath  the  pressure  and  the 
pouring  of  its  impetuous  flow  ;  deficient  also  in  that  internal 
emotion  which  communicates  itself  to  the  auditory,  because 
it  is  felt  by  the  orator  himself;  in  that  imagination  which 
gives  body  to  thought,  and  which  has  characterized  all  the 
great  masters  of  the  divine  art  of  expression  ;  in  fine,  in  that 
vehemence,  that  oratorical  action  which  appertains  to  the 
power  of  the  lungs  and  the  coloration  of  the  countenance. 

But  in  a  serious  assembly,  in  a  government  of  business, 
the  man  truly  eloquent  is  not  he  who  has  brilliancy,  passion, 
tears  in  the  very  voice,  but  he  who  discusses  best.  But 
Garnier-Pages  was  a  man  of  discussion.  He  was  reason 
itself,  spiced  with  wit.  He  had  a  talent  completely  parlia- 
mentary. He  said  but  just  what  he  meant  to  say,  and,  like 
an  expert  navigator,  he  steered  his  words  and  his  ideas 
through  the  shoals  which  beset  him  on  every  side,  not  only 
without  going  to  wreck,  but  without  ever  running  aground. 

Men  in  assemblages,  parliamentary  or  popular,  love  what 
dazzles,  what  moves,  \vhat  startles,  what  captivates,  them. 
They  do  not  enough  take  account  of  the  justness  of  the 
thoughts,  the  propriety  of  the  terms,  the  connection  of  the 
discourse.  Garnier-Paires  did  not  charm  the  frivolous,  but 
he  pleased  the  grave,  for  his  speeches  had  more  of  the  solid 
than  the  brilliant.  He  did  not  attend  so  much  to  the  rapidity 
of  his  ideas  as  to  their  sequence,  nor  to  the  pomp  of  the 
words  as  to  the  things  the  words  expressed.  His  discussion 
was  compact  and  substantial.  He  deduced  his  propositions 
from  each  other,  beginning  with  the  principal,  to  reach  the 
secondary,  and  his  reasonings  fell  into  the  utmost  compres- 
sion and  unity,  without  the  least  confusion.  I  do  not  hesi- 
tate to  say — and  in  this  particular,  I  will,  I  think,  be  allow- 
ed to  judge — that  Garnier-Pages  was  one  of  the  best  dialec 
titians  of  the  Chamber. 

His  familiar  conversation  abounded  in  observations  pointed 
and  epigrammatic  without  being  wounding.  He  sparkled 
with  gayety  and  wit.  The  oratorical  immodesty  which, 
in  others,  were  superciliousness;  in  him  was  turned  into 


164  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

naivete.  Returned  to  his  seat,  he  weakened  sometimes,  by 
his  jesting,  the  impression  which  he  had  made  in  the  tri- 
bune by  his  elevated  reason.  But  the  light  Frenchman, 
can  he  refrain  from  banter  and  laughter,  even  in  the  height 
of  danger,  even  at  the  hour  of  death  ? 

Garnier-Pages,  like  all  politicians,  exaggerated  the  im- 
portance of  the  medium  in  which  he  acted.  Where  there 
were  but  a  few  scattered  individuals,  Gamier-Pages  would 
imagine  he  saw  a  party.  He  magnified,  with  the  eye  of  a 
wolf,  the  microscopic  slimness  of  the  Extreme  Left. 

Ill  at  ease  upon  a  narrow  and  ruinous  ground  which  was 
failing  him  on  all  sides,  he  desired  to  show  that  the  power- 
lessness  of  his  position  was  not  owing  to  want  of  power  in 
the  man,  and  he  set  himself  to  study,  to  expound,  with  in- 
defatigable ardor,  the  subjects  of  finance  and  political  econ- 
omy. Thus  it  is  that  he  passed  night  and  day  in  delving 
into  the  vast  and  arid  question  of  rent.  His  two  discourses 
have  made  an  epoch,  and  he  may  be  said  to  have  exhausted 
the  subject.  A  perfect  perspicuity  of  exposition,  a  remark- 
able surcness  of  judgment,  a  profound  knowledge  of  details, 
a  clear  and  vigorous  argumentation,  a  sustained  skill,  a 
moderation  of  ideas,  a  circumspection  of  language,  a  point- 
ed promptness  of  reply,  never  enough  to  be  praised — such 
were  the  qualities  that  held  captive  during  several  hours,  the 
attention  of  the  Chamber  the  most  inattentive  on  earth,  and 
which  so  impressed  his  very  adversaries,  that  they  were 
heard  to  mutter  on  leavinor  the  session  : — Younsr  orator  of 
immense  promise  !  future  minister  of  finance — of  the  de- 
mocracy !    ■ 

In  the  discussion  of  the  Bureaus,  he  spoke  upon  every 
subject,  little,  but  well,  seasonably,  clearly,  practically,  with- 
out phrases  and  without  pretension,  without  anger  and  with- 
out abuse  ;  and  ministers  had  not  an  antagonist  more  prompt, 
peremptory  and  embarrassing. 

Garnier-Pages  and  Guizot  have  been,  in  our  day,  the  two 
only  deputies  who  were  in  a  condition  to  unite,  to  discipline 
and  to  conduct  a  party.  Odillon-Barrot  is  too  abstract;  Man- 


GARNIER -PACKS.  165 

guiii  too  frivolous,  Thiers  too  careless,  Saubert  too  hot- 
headed, Lamartine  too  vague,  Dupin  too  mercurial,  and  the 
others  have  either  not  the  will,  or,  not  the  power.  I  do  not 
say  that  Garnier-Pages  and  Guizot  were  men  of  intrigue, 
but  I  say  they  were  men  of  ability.  Both  were  active  and 
energetic ;  both  well-informed  in  the  personal  statistics  of 
their  troops ;  both  consummate  tacticians ;  both  capable  of 
assigning  to  each  one  the  reason  which  should  determine 
him  ;  both  employing  unexpected  stratagems ;  both  in  the 
Chamber,  in  the  bureau,  in  the  associations,  elsewhere,  any- 
where, oppressed,  possessed  with  the  yearning  to  act,  to  state 
the  question,  to  merge  dissidences,  to  coalesce  opinions,  to 
organize  the  affair,  and  take  the  leadership  themselves. 
Both  were  excellent  leaders  of  Opposition,  if  Garnier-Pages 
had  a  little  more  of  the  gravity  of  Guizot,  and  if  Guizot 
had  something  more  of  the  dexterity  of  Garnier-Pages. 

But,  what  is  no  difficult  matter  indeed,  M.  Guizot  leads, 
with  lash  uplifted,  his  band  of  obedient  school-boys,  while 
the  Extreme  Left  is  impatient  of  the  curb,  discontented,  mu- 
tinous and  almost  indisciplinable.  As  they  do  not  care  to 
be  simple  soldiers,  and  each  would  be  an  officer,  every  one 
has  the  pleasure  of  obeying  and  commanding  himself,  pro- 
vided that  he  can  come  to  an  understanding  with  himself,  a 
thing  which  does  not  always  happen.  And  then  does  not 
the  Extreme  Left  pride  itself  upon  belonging  to  no  one,  and 
offering  no  systematical  opposition  ?  Just  so  ;  how  pro- 
foundly shrewd  !  Make  no  systematic  opposition  to  others 
who  will  make  you  a  systematic  ministerialism,  and  you 
may  well  flatter  yourselves  with  having  achieved  magnifi- 
cent  things !  Isolate  yourselves,  break  your  ranks,  fire  at 
random,  while  the  ministry,  backed  by  the  dark  masses  of  the 
Centre,  pour  upon  you  the  voUies  of  their  compact  battalions. 
This  is  well-disciplined  opposition  !  this  is  admirable  tactic  ! 

Either  I  am  mistaken,  or  from  the  nature  of  his  talent, 
Garnier-Pages  would  have  made  a  good  minister.  But 
think  not  I  would  have  favored  him  as  candidate,  and  been 
impatient  to  paint  him,  with  a  red  portfolio  under  his  arm, 


166  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

and  his  collar  embroidered  with  gold.  I  merely  say  he 
would  have  had  the  talent,  I  do  not  say  he  would  have  had 
the  ambition. 

Yes,  Garnier-Pages  had  all  the  capacities  requisite  to  a 
minister  :  a  rapidity  of  glance,  which  goes  straight  to  the 
depths  of  things  ;  a  judgment  never  misled  by  imagina- 
tion ;  a  dialectic  animated,  exact  and  cogent ;  an  intellect 
fruitful  of  resources,  prompt  in  expedients,  comprehensive 
in  organization,  active  and  p^'severing  in  means. 

In  like  manner,  in  a  few  years  Garnier-Pages,  had  he 
wished  it,  might  have  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the  bar. 
He  possessed  all  the  qualities  of  the  advocates  of  our  day, 
as  much  perhaps  as  those  of  the  orator :  a  plodding  penetra- 
tion, a  profound  knowledge  of  the  law,  a  marvellous  facility 
of  argumentation,  a  power  of  natural  and  instant  retort,  a 
logical  connection  of  thought,  a  great  solidity  of  judgment. 

What  surprised  me  most  in  him  was  his  eminent  aptitude 
for  business,  an  aptitude  such  that  M.  Thiers  himself  would 
not  have  surpassed  him.  For  if  Thiers  saw  more  quickly 
and  farther,  Garnier-Pages  saw  more  justly,  I  do  not,  I 
own,  much  admire  that  light  suppleness  of  speech  and 
mind  which  consists  in  skirmishing  around  the  benches  of 
the  ministers,  and  covering,  roughening  their  skin  with 
stings  and  pimples.  These  are  refinements  and  subtleties 
which  are  not  always  comprehended  by  the  public,  ill  ini- 
tiated in  the  falsehoods  and  synonymes  of  the  parliamentary 
jargon. 

I  prefer  more  nerve  and  earnestness  in  the  discourse,  and 
I  think  it  necessary  to  know  how  to  stop,  when  one  has  no- 
thing to  say.  But  the  pleaders,  in  all  parties,  are  as  exact- 
ing as  the  litigants.  If  you  do  not  speak,  they  say  you  be- 
tray them.  If  you  speak,  they  say  you  have  made  a  bad 
defence.  It  never  enters  their  head  that  it  is  their  cause 
that  is  worth  nothing,  and  not  their  advocate. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  since  the  Revolution  of 
July,  there  has  never  been  a  systematic  Opposition  ;  never 
recognized  and  regular  chiefs  of  the  combat ;  but  merely 


GARNIER-PAGES.  167 

soldiers  quaintly  accoutred  in  all  sorts  of  armor,  fortuitous 
and  miscellaneous  aggregations  of  sharp-shooters.  I  would 
add,  since  1  am  in  train  of  frankness,  that  the  democratic 
party  has  its  inconsistencies  quite  as  well  as  other  parlies ; 
and  were  I  to  perform  its  autopsy,  I  could  show  with  how. 
many  disorders  its  poor  system  is  shattered. 

There  are  those  who  would  be  content  to  change  once' 
more  a  king,  to  try  if  that  would  not  do  perhaps  better. 
Others  are  immediately  for  a  republic.  Otliers  wish  it 
equally,  but  not  so  soon.  The  latter  would  have  the  coun- 
try fairly  consulted,  what  has  never  yet  been  done,  and  the 
matter  decided  by  a  majority  of  the  citizens. 

The  truth  is  that  there  is  not  in  the  Chamber  a  sinsjle 
deputy  who  is  consistent  in  any  one  of  his  opinions.  Ask 
rather  the  ministerialists,  the  Third- Party-men,  and  the  Dy- 
nasties  if  they  think  themselves  really  to  represent  the  coun- 
try :  they  will  tell  you  the  thing  is  evident,  since  the  coun- 
try has  not  remonstrated  against  their  charter  and  their  laws, 
and  that  silence  gives  consent. 

To  this  I  would  reply  in  turn,  that  the  Turks  do  not  take 
it  into  their  heads  to  remonstrate  against  the  firmans 
of  his  Highness  the  Sultan  Mahomet,  a  thing  which  does 
not  at  all  prove  that  the  Turks  are  free,  nor  that  they  have 
the  smallest  relish  for  the  renjime  of  the  bastinado  and  the 
sack.  This  is,  in  fact,  a  very  pretty  dilemma.  If  you  do 
not  remonstrate,  you  are  taken  to  consent ;  but  if  you 
do  remonstrate,  you  are  incarcerated  provisionally  in  the 
Conciergerie,  whence  you  are  led  in  the  company  of  thieves, 
to  be  escorted  in  the  company  of  gendarmes.,  to  the  prison 
of  Clairvaux,  where,  lodged  between  four  walls,  you  are  at 
liberty,  if  you  have  the  least  inclination,  to  remonstrate  as 
loud  and  as  long  as  you  please.  Very  honest  governments, 
and  very  truthful  representations  are  those  governments  and 
representations  of  the  ^^  silence  gives  consent/'^ 

Ask  now  the  Legitimists,  who  take  the  oath  in  the  religious 
sense,  if  they  feel  quite  at  ease  in  placing  their  sworn  hand 
in  that  of  Louis-Philippe,  while  their  hearts  are  at  Goritzs ; 


1(38  R  £  V  O  L  U  T  1  U  N      OF      J  L  L  V" . 

they  will  answer  you  bravely,  that  they  take  their  seats  in 
virtue  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people. 

To  this  I  would  in  turn  reply  that,  to  invoke  the  sove- 
r^gnty  of  the  people,  it  would  be  necessary  to  begin  by  re- 
cognizing it ;  that  one  cannot  serve  two  masters,  adore  two 
gods,  call  himself  the  subject  of  two  kings,  hold  at  the  same 
time  to  two  contrary  principles — to  legitimacy  and  to  usur- 
pation. All  the  explanations  in  the  world,  you  see,  will  not 
cure  that  forced  position  of  its  defects  of  precision  and 
logic. 

Finally,  ask  the  men  of  the  Extreme  Left  if  they  do  not 
feel  some  compunction  in  taking  the  oath :  they  will  reply 
that  a  political  oath  is  a  mere  formality  ;  that  it  obliges 
neither  to  serve  nor  to  love  this  person  or  that ;  that  it  binds 
no  more  towards  prince,  charter  and  laws,  the  deputies  who 
take  it  against  their  will,  than  the  people  who  do  not  take  it 
at  all ;  and  if  you  insist,  if  you  ask  why  they  pretend  to  make 
— they  whom  the  country  has  not  appointed — the  laws 
which  bind  the  country,  they  will  answer  that  these  laws 
would  be  still  worse  if  they  had  not  a  hand  in  them. 

To  this  1  would  again  reply,  that  the  excuse  extenuates 
the  fact,  but  does  not  alter  it,  and  that  the  organical  faith- 
lessness of  the  representation  is  not  cancelled  by  the  neces- 
sity of  the  consequences. 

This  explains  why  it  is  that,  as  1  have  said,  there  is  not 
a  single  deputy,  of  whatever  hue  of  opinion,  who  is  not 
anti-logical,  and  why  that  Chamber,  which  contains  indi- 
vidually so  many  and  distinguished  talents,  is  so  faded  in 
color,  so  lax  in  fibre,  so  tremulous  in  every  limb,  so  wasted, 
so  exhausted,  so  faint,  that  it  has  not  even  the  force  of  abor- 
tion, not  having  the  force  of  production. 

In  fact,  all  the  parties,  without  exception,  are  untrue  to 
the  great  principle  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  in 
consequence  each  party  is  untrue  to  its  own  principles.  I 
affirm  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  more  false  or  more 
stupid  than  such  a  position.  Who  has  not  beheld  the  puri- 
tans, and  Garnier-Pages  first  amongst  them,  take  incredible 


GAR  NMER-i' AGES.  160 


■  i 


pains,  wring  their  hands  in  the  muteness  of  pantomime 
twist  and  turn  themselves  in  a  thousand  oratorical  contor- 
sions,  to  intimate  at  half-voice  tliat  a  different  system  would 
have  done  better?  But  what  is  the  use  of  these  efforts  of 
style,  these  synonymes,  these  parliamentary  feats  of  rheto- 
ric ?  Is  it  hoped  to  delude  the  men  of  abuse  ?  Their  ears 
are  long  and  keen.  They  perk  up  at  the  least  word  that 
tickles  them.  A  system  of  government,  moreover,  is  not 
to  be  modified  by  an  oratorical  allusion.  Give  me  twenty 
lines  of  a  newspaper,  and  I  will  say  more  upon  the  subject 
than  the  finest  speech,  of  an  hour's  length. 

Let  there  be  no  expectation  then  from  the  Chambers 
present  or  future.  They  are  and  will  always  be  what 
they  always  have  been,  ministerial — ministerial,  on  any 
terms,  filled,  from  floor  to  roof,  with  salaried  functionaries, 
stationary  when  not  retrograde,  the  sport  of  every  idle  fear, 
impotent  for  good,  prodigal  of  our  money,  worthy  offspring, 
in  a  word,  of  the  electoral  monopoly  ;  they  have  done 
nothing,  and  will  do  nothing,  for  social  progress.  They 
have  not  repealed,  and  will  not  repeal,  the  lavv^s  of  Septem- 
ber. They  have  not  organized,  and  will  not  organize, 
labor.  They  will  die  one  after  another  of  impotence  and 
senility,  and  it  will  be  always  to  begin  anew,  until  every 
Frenchman  shall  have  a  voice  in  the  electoral  colleges. 

One  day,  that  radical  Left,  now  so  silent  and  cold,  will 
shake  off  the  trammels  of  this  monopoly.  One  day,  from 
the  fertilizing  springs  of  universal  suffrage,  will  arise  the 
orators'of  independent  brow  and  whose  burning  words  shall 
diffuse  around  them  v/armth  and  life.  One  day,  the  people 
themselves  will  lay,  by  the  hands  of  their  real  representa- 
tives, the  broad  foundations  of  the  temple  of  liberty.  But 
for  the  present,  without  being  as  grand  as  it  might  be,  the 
task  of  the  Opposition  is  sufficiently  glorious. 

It  has  a  right  to  claim  all  the  consequences  of  the  princi- 
ple of  popular  sovereignty  :  abroad,  independence  ;  at  home, 
liberty,  equality,  instruction,  economy,  reform.  What  is  a 
deputy  who  would  wrap  himself  up  in  the  taciturnity  of 

15 


1 70  R  JB  V  O  L  U  T  1  O  N     O  r     J  U  L  Y  . 

spleen  and  despair  ?  What  is  the  soldier  who  would  hide 
himself  in  his  tent,  instead  of  fighting  in  open  day,  at  the 
head  of  the  camp  ?  It  is  the  duty  of  the  men  of  right  to 
spread  the  truth  before  the  men  of  abuse,  even  though  the 
latter  should  trample  the  seed  under  foot.  Contempt,  inter- 
ruptions, calumnies,  insult,  they  should  bear  all  ibr  their 
country.  If  the  country  does  not  comprehend  them,  does 
not  sustain  them,  does  not  remember  them,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  country,  and  not  for  them. 

It  must  therefore  not  be  said,  with  a  publicist  of  my 
acquaintance,  and  thanks  to  me,  well  known,*  that  he  can- 
not improvisate  ;  that  he  has  a  bad  memory  •  that  the  mur- 
murings  of  the  Centre  would  drown  his  voice  ;  that  it  would 
have  no  echo ;  that  written  discourses  are  cold,  artificial, 
fit  to  be  read,  not  to  be  heard ;  that  the  vanity  of  the  writer 
would  suffer  from  the  feebleness  of  the  orator  ;  that  the 
writer  presents  results,  and  the  orator  developments  ;  that 
the  writer  is  fastidious,  if  he  repeats  himself,  and  the  orator 
not  understood,  if  he  does  not;  that  thus  the  qualities  of  the 
publicist  and  of  the  orator  exclude  each  other,  and  various 
other  pretexts. 

The  question  is  not,  sir,  whether  your  vanity  would 
suffer  by  not  uttering  the  truth  in  fine  language,  but  whether 
you  are  not  bound  to  utter  it  in  what  terms  soever  ;  whether 
you  ought  to  take  less  concern  for  your  reputation  than  for 
the  good  of  your  country.  Doubtless,  if  you  have  nothing 
worth  saying,  by  all  means  hold  your  tongue  ;  but  if  your 
conscience  oppresses  you,  discharge  it.  Keep  always  ad- 
vancing, always  in  quest  of  new  knowledge,  and  cleave 
with  your  prow  the  unexplored  ocean  of  the  future.  Truth 
is  like  the  long  wake  which  the  steamboat  leaves  behind  it, 
whose  orbs,  in  expanding,  are  rolled  gradually  to  either 
bank  and  end  by  enveloping  the  whole  surface  of  the  river. 
Is  it  that  you  imagine  that,  perchance,  you  will  not  be  pun- 
ished as  well  for  your  silence  as  for  your  speech,  that  your 
house  has   not  been  already  marked   with   chalk  by  the 

*  The  Author  himself  ?~T.'s  N. 


G  ARN  lER-P  AGES.  171 

sbires  of  power,  and  that  you  will  not  sooner  or  later  pass 
beneath  the  forks  of  proscription  !  Go  then  and  rejoice,  if 
you  are  destined  to  suffer  for  the  good  cause.  Know,  sir, 
that  the  field  of  liberty  has  need  for  a  long  time  yet  of 
being  watered  with  the  tears  and  the  blood  of  its  defenders ! 

No,  the  members  of  the  Extreme  Left  cannot  remain  with 
folded  arms,  while  society,  impelled  by  a  mysterious  and 
powerful  force,  is  marching  towards  a  better,  but  inexpli- 
cable, future. 

At  all  events,  quite  different  is  the  duty  of  the  writer, 
who  lives  in  the  absolute,  from  the  duty  of  the  deputy,  who 
lives  in  the  relative.  The  one  holds  his  commission  but 
of  himself,  the  other  but  of  his  constituents ;  the  one 
chooses  his  position,  the  other  accepts  it ;  the  one  is  the 
man  of  what  is  not  yet,  the  other  the  man  of  what  is  actu- 
ally ;  the  one  deals  always  with  theories,  the  other  always 
with  applications. 

Garnier-Pages,  like  a  shrewd  politician,  comprehended 
that  in  a  monopoly  Chamber,  it  is  requisite  to  speak  the  whole 
truth,  and  not  to  demand  but  what  is  possible  ;  that,  by  a 
skilful  laborer,  the  seeds  of  progress  may  be  brought  to 
germinate  in  the  most  ungrateful  soil  ;  that  a  deputy  is  not 
master  of  refusing  a  proffered  amelioration,  however  small 
it  may  be  ;  that  the  fruits  of  violence  are  always  bitter  and 
rickety,  and  fall  before  being  ripe ;  in  fine,  that  the  weapons 
of  ariiument  are  more  sure  and  more  victorious  in  a  free 
country  than  the  resort  to  musketry  and  bayonfets.* 

Yes,  politics  should  not  resemble  those  scourges  of  hea- 
ven, those  ravagers  of  nations  who  are  heralded  along  their 
paths  by  terror  and  despair,  who  batter  down  the  temples 
of  religion  without  rebuilding  them,  and  the  institutions 
of  society  without  re-constituting  them,  who  make  around 
them  a  desert,  and  are  delighted  but  amid  vengeance,  ruins 
and  graves.  If  it  is  not  permitted  as  yet  to  build  an  edifice 
regular,  new  and  complete,  we  must  at  least  cut  the  stones 

*  This  paragraph  offers  a  sufficiently  exact  resume  of  the  policy  of 
O'Connell.— T.'s  N. 


172  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

and  bring  them  upon  the  ground.  Each  season  has  its 
work,  every  age  advances  a  step.  The  legislator  should 
imitate  nature,  who  never  takes  repose,  who  repairs  and  re- 
produces herself  unceasingly,  who  is  ever  decorating  her- 
self afresh  with  new  harvests  and  flowers,  and  who  draws 
vitality  from  death  itself.  At  the  present  day,  the  end  of 
every  statesman  who  comprehends  his  sacred  mission,  shouM 
be  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  human  species. 
Every  effort  of  the  law-maker,  v/hich  had  not  this  tendency, 
would  be  anti-moral,  anti-philosophical,  anti-religious,  bar- 
ren, impotent,  negative,  without  object  and  without  excuse. 

If  it  is  not  allowable  to  organize  the  great  bases  of  gov- 
ernment, nor  even  to  discuss  them,  there  is  still  much  good 
to  be  done  in  the  secondary  questions.  The  Charter  has  not 
sprung  forth,  one  fair  August  morning,  from  the  brains  of 
MM.  Berard  and  Dupin.  These  gentlemen  have  not,  that  I 
know,  invented  the  jury,  the  freedom  of  worship,  the  liberty 
of  the  press,  the  responsibility  of  ministers,  nor  even  the 
equality  of  taxation.  We,  too,  are  conservatives  of  this  and 
whatever  else  of  the  kind  there  is  to  be  conserved  in  the 
Charter,  and  we  defy  the  keenest  hunters  of  office,  of  power, 
salaries,  or  sinecures,  to  love  more  prodigiously  the  good 
things  of  the  Charter  than  we  do.  There  is  therefore  still 
much  to  be  said  respecting  this  excellent  personage,  the 
Charter,  v/ithout  giving  ground  for  reprehension  or  cause 
of  pain. 

What  matters  it,  moreover,  whether  in  that  dull  and  deso- 
late Chamber  the  Extreme  Left  speak  out  or  not  ?  What 
matter  whether  it  be  listened  to  or  disdained  ?  What  mat- 
ter- that  Lafayette  die,  that  Carrel  fall,  that  Garnier-Pages 
disappear  ?  The  men  depart,  the  principle  remains.  These 
two  hundred  years,  and  throughout  all  Europe,  despotism 
has  in  vain  cut  down  with  musketry  and  cannon,  the  ranks 
of  the  people ;  the  voids  fill  up,  the  battalions  thicken,  the 
land  of  democracy  smiles  in  fertility,  the  generations  grow 
up  full  of  hope  and  ardor,  and  the  battle  recommences  on 
every  side,  with  certain  triumph  in  the  prospect. 


G  AR  N  I  E  R- P  AG  E  3.  173 

No,  the  sovereignty  of  the  nations,  from  which  all  ema- 
nates and  to  which  all  returns,  will  not  perish,  unless  the 
people  be  put  to  death  by  the  people  and  Europe  made  one 
immense  solitude.  The  sovereignty  of  nations  is  the  prin- 
ciple of  liberty,  based  upon  equality  political,  civil  and  re- 
ligious. It  is  the  principle  of  order  founded  upon  respect 
for  the  rights  of  all  and  of  each.  It  is  the  most  beautiful 
of  theories  only  because  it  is  the  truest.  It  is  the  most  con- 
solatory, only  because  it  leaves  no  misfortune  without  suc- 
cor, no  injustice  without  redress.  It  is  the  most  sublime, 
only  because  it  is  the  expression  of  the  general  will.  It  is 
the  most  prolific,  only  because  it  is  the  fountain  of  all  per- 
fectibility. It  is  the  most  natural,  only  because  it  is  no 
other  than  the  law  of  the  majority,  who,  all  unconsciously, 
govern  the  free  societies.  It  is  the  noblest,  but  because  it 
is  the  only  one  which  answers  to  the  dignity  of  human  na- 
ture. It  is  the  most  legitimate,  only  as  being  the  sole  theory 
which  accounts  for  the  alliance  of  power  with  liberty,  and 
which  makes  the  one  respectable  and  the  other  possible.  It 
is  the  most  reasonable,  only  because  the  presumption  is  that 
several  are  right  rather  than  one,  and  all  than  several.  It 
is  the  holiest,  only  because  it  is  the  most  perfect  realization 
of  the  symbolical  equality  of  all  men.  It  is  the  most  phi- 
losophic, but  because  it  dispels  the  prejudices  of  aristocracy 
and  of  divine  right.  It  is  the  most  logical,  but  because  there 
is  not  one  serious  objection  which  it  cannot  resolve,  nor  a 
form  of  government  to  which  it  cannot  adapt  itself,  without 
altering  its  principle.  In  fine,  it  is  the  most  magnificent, 
but  because  from  the  immense  trunk  of  the  sovereignty  of 
nations,  spring  at  once  all  the  branches  of  the  social  tree, 
charged  with  sap  and  with  foliage,  with  fruits  and  flowers. 

15* 


174  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 


CASIMIR-PERIER. 

The  Court,  as  yet  ill  fortified  within  and  without,  moved 
gropingly  along  the  way  of  its  infant  establishment.  Rid  at 
last  of  Lafayette  and  of  Lafitte,  whom  it  had  loved  so  much 
and  pressed  so  often  to  its  heart,  it  found  itself  placed  be- 
tween the  adventurers  of  the  doctrinism  and  the  tremblers  of 
the  commonalty  :  it  cast  its  eyes  upon  Casimir-Perier. 

His  immense  wealth  gave  him  that  sort  of  apparent  in- 
dependence which  elevates  a  man  above  the  suspicions  of 
corruption,  and  which  always  imposes  upon  the  vulgar. 
He  attracted  the  Legitimists  by  the  secret  predilection  of 
Charles  X.  for  his  person,  and  he  could  excite  no  distrust  in 
Louis-Philippe,  having  never  served  another  master.  His 
impassioned  dialectic  rendered  him  marvellously  fit  to  strug- 
gle against  the  Opposition,  man  to  man,  invective  to  invec- 
tive. He  was  a  personage  of  action  and  vivid  retort,  en- 
dowed with  more  parliamentary  resolution  than  personal 
courage,  always  ready  to  take  the  tribune  by  storm,  and  tak- 
ing it  in  fact.  There  was  nothino;  even  to  the  height  of  his 
stature,  his  quick  and  imperious  step,  his  eyes  hidden  under 
the  thick  lashes  and  always  full  of  a  red  and  glowing  flame, 
which  did  not  complete  the  wholeness  of  his  circumstantial 
superiority.  He  seemed  made  for  the  command  and  for  the 
presidency  of  the  Council,  and  there  was  none,  not  even  the 
conqueror  of  Toulouse,  who  thought  of  contesting  it  with 
him.  The  Court,  the  burgess  tremblers,  the  peers  of  legiti- 
macy, the  sharpers  of  the  Bourse,  and  the  sheeplike  majority 
of  the  Chamber,  all  threw  themselves  at  the  feet  of  Casimir- 
Perier  to  implore  him  to  take  the  helm  of  State,  to  guide  and 
save  them. 

Here,  I  must  honestly  beg  the  reader  not  to  examine  the 
portrait  I  am  about  to  paint,  but  with  a  degree  of  distrust, 
of  reserve  at  least.     I  am  sincere,  but  I  am  not  impartial. 


4 


CASIMIR-PERIER.  175 

Casimir-Pcrier  deceived  my  liberal  hopes.  He  violently 
attacked  my  character.  It  may  well  be  that,  in  this  situa- 
tion of  mind,  I  have,  in  depicting  him,  now  some  years  ago, 
mixed  too  much  black  upon  my  easel.  But  it  is  necessary 
on  the  other  hand,  if  I  would  not  lie,  to  say  what  I  have 
seen.  I  then  drew,  besides,  but  the  sick  man,  a  prey  to  keen 
and  internal  suffering,  and  to  embarrassments  of  government 
and  politics  well  capable  of  disturbing  the  thoughts  and  dis- 
ordering the  judgment. 

These  precautions  taken  against  the  possible  error  of  my 
appreciation,  I  proceed. 

Casimir-Perier  exhibited  towards  his  last  days,  a  tempes- 
tuous energy  which  sapped  his  strength,  and  was  carrying 
him  rapidly  to  the  tomb.  He  stirred  up,  he  inflamed,  with- 
out knowing  it,  without  willing  it  perhaps,  and  by  a  sort  of 
convulsive  sympathy,  all  these  bad  passions  which  ever 
slumber  in  the  corner  of  the  most  tranquil  souls.  His  voice 
was  the  signal  to  both  parties  to  rush  upon  one  another,  and 
you  would  have  taken  the  Chamber  for  an  unchained  mad- 
house rather  than  an  assembly  of  sober  legislators. 

The  sessions  at  that  period,  were  somewhat  like  those  of 
the  Convention,  with  the  exception  of  the  theatric  grandeur 
of  the  events,  and  the  tragic  end  of  the  actors.  The  minis- 
ters and  the  Centres  were  afraid  of  themselves  and  of 
each  other  ;  it  is  an  amusement  like  any  other.  Instead  of 
action  there  was  abuse ;  and  the  Chamber  presented  the 
spectacle  of  a  reign  of  terror  in  miniature. 

Fear  has  always  been  and  ever  will  be,  of  all  parliamen- 
tary springs,  the  most  energetic  and  perhaps  the  most  effi- 
cient. It  acts  upon  the  women,  the  children,  the  aged,  and 
upon  the  pusillanimous  deputies,  who,  in  dangers,  real  or 
imaginary,  flock  tremblingly  together.  Add  to  their  real 
fears,  those  they  feign :  for  there  is  upon  the  ministerial 
benches  a  crowd  of  timorous  pigeons,  always  in  a  flutter  to 
get  behind  the  altar  and  shelter  themselves  under  the  wing 
of  the  god  who  reigns  and  who  governs  for  the  time  being. 

Casimir-Perier  should  be  seen  in   these  moments,  seen 


176  REVOLUTION      OFJULY. 

face  to  face  as  I  have  seen  him,  to  paint  him  faithfully. 
His  lofty  stature  was  already  bowed.  His  beautiful  and 
majestic  countenance  was  altered  with  shade  and  wrinkles. 
His  cheeks  were  sunken,  his  eyes  rolled  a  fire  mixed  with 
blood.  His  words  burned  like  the  fever  he  felt,  and  he  had 
fits  of  derangement.  He  abused,  lashed,  tyrannized  the 
majority  quite  the  same  as  the  minority,  and  by  his  conduct 
astounded  the  other  ministers.  There  was  no  distinction  at 
that  time  of  Third-party,  of  pure' ministerialists,  and  of  Doc- 
trinarians. Casimir-Perier  left  the  fractions  of  the  majority 
no  time  to  recoo;nize  and  count  themselves.  He  brouarht 
them  together,  he  compressed  them  rigorously  under  his 
crisped  fingers,  and  then  dispatched  pell-mell  to  the  combat, 
Dupin,  Thiers,  Guizot,  Barthe,  Jaubert,  Jacqueminot  and 
Keratry.  He  himself  wrestled  in  the  estrade  of  the  tribune, 
with  the  deputy  Jousselin.  Another  time,  an  officer  had  to 
be  sent  to  whisper  to  him  that  his  garments  were  in  disorder. 
So  much  had  the  preoccupations  of  the  parliamentary  strug- 
gle absorbed  the  entire  man. 

The  majority  did  not  obey  him  by  conviction,  opposition 
or  system  ;  it  rallied  mechanically  to  the  will,  to  the  ire 
of  this  maniac.  It  imitated  his  attitude,  his  gesture,  his 
tone  of  voice,  his  anger.  Like  him,  it  leaped,  stamped, 
howled  and  wrung  its  arms.  But  when,  after  several  fits 
of  parliamentary  frenzy,  Casimir-Perier  had  attained  the 
paroxysm  of  his  fury,  his  head  grew  dizzy  ;  he  sunk  ex- 
hausted, shattered  down,  and  giving  up  the  ghost. 

Since  his  death,  these  intelligent  and  peremptory  tran- 
sports passed  fdr  firmness,  and  two  or  three  phrases,  always 
the  same,  v/hich  were  prompted  to  him,  and  which  he  re-' 
peated  without  comprehending,  got  him  the  reputation  of 
genius.  The  priesthood  of  the  Juste-milieu  concealed  the 
secret  of  their  knaveries  in  the  hollow  of  that  idol,  and 
gilded  it  from  head  to  foot  to  captivate  the  homage  of  the 
vulgar. 

We  owe  the  dead  no  more  than  truth ;  but  this  is  due  to 
them  in  eulogy  as  well  as  in  criticism,  and  I  feel  here  the 


CASIMIR-PERIER.  177 

necessity  of  retouchincr  some  features  of  my  former  portrait. 
Thus  while  now  repeating  that  Casimir-Perier  was  harsh, 
irascible,  imperious,  without  taste,  without  reading,  without 
literary  instruction,  without  philanthropy,  without  philoso- 
phy, I  will  say  that  he  also  possessed  three  great  and  prin- 
cipal qualities  of  the  statesman,  ardor  and  vivacity  of  con- 
ception, decision  of  command,  force  and  persistence  of 
will. 

The  friends  of  liberty  who  would  not  be  ungratefyl  will 
always  distinguish  two  periods  in  his  life ;  the  one  glorious, 
his  career  of  representative ;  the  other  fatal  to  France  as 
to  himself,  his  career  of  minister.  The  Revolution  of  July 
owes  him  too  much  in  its  early  struggles  not  to  praise  him, 
and  he  has  done  it  too  much  prejudice  afterwards  not  to 
merit  its  blame. 

This  personage  has  been  the  representati\;e  the  most 
vehement  and  perhaps  the  most  sincere  of  the  old  liberal- 
ism. He  had  it  not  merely  upon  his  lips  like  his  ministerial 
successors,  but  also  in  his  heart.  But,  whether  blindness, 
or  force  of  habit,  he  was  unable  to  comprehend,  that  there 
is,  between  legitimacy  and  the  popular  sovereignty,  all  the 
depth  of  an  abyss. 

I  do  not  see  that  the  present  benches  of  the  Opposition 
possess  an  orator  of  the  stamp  of  Casimir-Perier.  Not  one, 
whose  penetration  is  so  sagacious,  whose  eloquence  so 
simple,  so  ready.  Casimir-Perier  was  exercised  in  the 
animated  contentions  of  the  Restoration.  Scarce  did  his 
wary  eye  see  Villele  put  the  finger  to  the  trigger,  than  his 
own  charge  was  off  and  in  the  bosom  of  the  man  of  power. 
He  plunged  headforemost  into  the  melee ;  he  marched 
right  to  the  minister  and  sat  beside  him  on  his  bench  of 
torture  ;  he  pressed  him  around  the  loins,  he  worried  him 
with  questions,  he  overwhelmed  him  with  apostrophes,  with- 
out leaving  him  time  to  recover  or  to  breathe  ;  he  held  him 
obstinately  upon  his  seat,  and  interrogated  him  authorita- 
tively as  if  he  was  his  judge.  We  are  a  quai^elsome  peo- 
ple, more  hardy  to  attack  than  patient  to  defend:  we  like 


178  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

aggression.  Perhaps  that  would  fail  another,  which  has 
so  well  succeeded  in  the  case  of  Perier !  but  it  suited  the 
man. 

While  Royer-Collard  gave  his  recriminations  the  philo- 
sophic elevation  of  an  axiom,  Casimir-Perier  was  ciphering 
his  argumentations.  With  Lafitte  and  Casmir-Perier, 
those  anatomists  of  budgets,  those  seekers,  those  investiga- 
tors, those  rummagers,  those  discussers  of  funds  secret  and 
disguised,  it  was  not  possible,  as  is  the  complaint  now-a- 
days,  to  slip,  into  the  chapter  of  criminal  justice,  the 
dowery  of  a  beloved  daughter  or  the  cachmere  shawl  of 
an  adored  wife  ;  in  the  purchase  of  military  beds,  the  price 
of  a  boudoir  and  a  silken  divan  ;  in  the  rough  repairs  of  a 
partition-wall,  the  decoration  of  a  dining-hall ;  in  the  pur- 
chase of  a  counting-desk,  the  expenses  of  a  pleasure-trip  ; 
in  the  re-establishment  of  the  fathers  of  La  Trapp,  the  grati- 
fication of  a  cook  ;  in  fine  in  the  expenditures  upon  the 
orphans  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  the  pension  of  an  opera- 
girl. 

Casimir-Perier  had,  during  the  Restoration,  been  engaged 
in  speculations  upon  a  vast  scale,  and  there  is  not  so  much 
difference  as  is  commonly  thought,  between  a  great  finan- 
cier and  a  great  administrator.  Pie  had  a  practised  apti- 
tude for  finance,  and  understood  it  in  theory  and  detail.  He 
saw  the  point  of  contestation  better  than  other  bankers,  and 
almost  with  the  promptness  of  an  advocate.  He  introduced 
into  the  affairs  of  the  State  the  same  order  which  reigned 
in  his  own.*      He  possessed  comprehensiveness  of  view, 

*  This,  as  a  fact,  has  not,  I  think,  been  commonly  the  case.  On 
the  contrary,  the  greatest  statesmen  have  often  been  among  the  least 
prudent  managers  of  their  private  affaii'S.  View  the  two  great  rival 
statesmen  of  England,  in  the  last  century,  in  this  character.  Even 
Burke,  a  greater  far  than  either,  though  brought  up  in  the  school  of 
adversity,  was  very  little  better  as  a  domestic  economist.  A  like  im- 
putation is  sometimes  made  upon  the  first  of  our  own  statesmen, 
Webster.  Th%  instances  are  without  number.  Indeed  they  consti- 
tute the  principle.    For  the  breadth  of  intellect  and  the  elevation  of 


C  A  S  I  ]M  I  R  -  P  E  R  I  E  R  .  ^  179 

and  in  his  character,  in  his  intellect,  in  his  habits,  in  his 
person,  had  that  absoluteness,  that  peremptoriness,  that  de- 
cision which  is  perhaps  indispensable  to  a  minister  of  the 
Interior,  in  order  to  overcome  the  doubts  and  hesitations  of 
prefects  and  commissioners,  to  get  rid  of  the  courtiers  and 
office-seekers,  to  cut  short  the  perplexities  of  detail,  to 
sweep  away  the  encumbrance  of  arrears,  to  open  and  con- 
clude great  undertakings,  and  to  conduct  resolutely  the  af- 
fairs and  interests  of  France. 

Doubtless,  he  cannot  be  too  severely  reproached  for  hav- 
ing inflicted  upon  the  Revolution  of  July  the  violence  of 
a  transient  reaction  ;*  but  had  he  lived,  he  would,  I  believe, 
have  returned  to  the  normal  ground  of  the  Charter.  He 
could  have  never  imagined  that  a  revolution  was  brought 
about  merely  to  paint  yellow  the  shutters  of  the  representa- 
tive shop.  He  would  not  have  erected  the  Chamber  of 
Peers  into  a  court  of  provost,  and  recommended,  as  did  the 
Doctrinarians,  to  expose  the  naked  head  of  the  proscribed  to 
the  burning  sun  of  the  equator.  He  vv'ould  have  battered 
down  the  barriers  of  the  Dardanelles,  launched  our  fleets, 
marched  our  armies,  emptied  the  treasury,  rather  than  suf- 
fer an  insult  to  France,  a  spot  upon  our  flag.     Born  a  great 

soul  which  qualify  to  conduct  the  aifairs  and  the  destinies  of  a  nation 
seem  to  be  incompatible  with  the  narrow-eyed  minuteness  and  the 
mercantile  spirit,  which  give  to  personal  concerns  their  system  and 
their  success. 

*  The  chief  endeavor  of  M.  Perier's  Ministry  appears  to  have 
been  '•  to  keep  France  at  peace  with  Europe,  and  thereby  to  make 
commerce  and  manufactures  flourish,  to  establish  civil  liberty,  and  re- 
press the  military  spirit ;  and  secondly,  to  render  the  government  more 
firm."  The  Opposition  reproached  him  with  ignominiously  court- 
ing the  favor  of  the  absolute  monarchs,  with  having  deprived  France 
of  the  honorable  and  elevated  position  due  to  her  in  the  European 
System,  with  being  unwilling  to  follow  up  frankly  the  principles  of 
the  ''  July  Revolution,"  and  with  "  having  sacrificed  Italy  to  Austria, 
and  Poland  to  Russia."  But  Periers  administration  was  of  great 
value  to  France,  on  account  of  his  financial  abilities — for  France  had 
not  yet  recovered  from  the  exhaustion  produced  by  her  protracted 
wars. 


180  .  CABIMIR-PERIER. 

personage  on  the  birth-day  of  the  dynasty,  he  knew  by  ex- 
perience how  kings  are  made  and  of  what  stuff.  He  was 
not  a  man  to  be  flattered  into  a  prostration  of  his  indomitable 
will  at  the  feet  of  a  master.  He  would  not  therefore  be 
content  to  be  a  nominal  President,  a  Comarilla*  valet,  a 
train-bearer  of  the  commandants  of  the  wardrobe,  and  leav- 
ing Royalty  to  reign  amid  the  splendors  of  its  gold  upon  its 
solitary  throne,  he  would  have  stopped  it  at  the  legal  limits 
of  the  government,  saying  :  "  Thus  far,  but  no  farther  !" 

*  A  nickname  of  tlie  Louis-Philippe  dynasty. 


S  AU  Z  ET.  181 


SAUZET. 

PRE3IDE>'T  OF  THE  CHAMBER  OF  DEPUTEES. 

The  orator  does  not  exhibit  himself  in  profile,  like  the 
writer,  but  in  full  face.  He  attires,  gesticulates,  declaims 
upon  a  stage,  before  a  number  of  spectators,  who  survey  him 
as  we  do  a  mimic,  from  head  to  foot.  The  writer  is  account- 
able but  for  his  intellect.  The  orator  is  held  responsible  for 
his  figure. 

M.  Sauzet  is  somewhat  effeminate  and  negligent  in  his 
personal  habits.  He  is  not  muscular  nor  well  set.  His 
complexion  is  fair  and  slightly  colored  ;  his  countenance  is 
open,  and  his  blue  eyes  are  full  of  sweetness.  He  is  a  mix- 
ture of  the  man  and  the  woman. 

Simple,  easily  led,  not  suflnciently  bearded  and  tempered 
with  vigor  for  great  effort.  A  good  sort  of  man,  and  who 
must  be  put  to  bed  by  his  wife,  if  he  is  married,  and  by  the 
servant,  if  he  is  not. 

M.  Sauzet  fidgets  and  waddles  about  like  a  child,  so  that 
it  is  impossible  to  seize  his  outline,  and  it  will  be  necessary 
to  wait  till  the  perfected  daguerreotype  come  to  my  aid  to 
keep  him  quiet,  at  least  for  a  moment,  in  the  field  of  the  came- 
ra-obscura.  And  then  M.  Sauzet  too  would  perhaps  like — 
they  have  all  this  failing — that  I  should  make  him  a  Demos- 
thenes. But  it  is  not  my  fault,  no  more  is  it  yours,  reader, 
if  the  Demosthenes  of  the  city  of  Canuts  does  not  resemble 
completely  the  Demosthenes  of  the  city  of  Minerva. 

When  the  Lyonese  lawyer  made  his  appearance  in  the 
Chamber,  he  carried  constantly  a  smile  upon  his  lips.  Be 
it  natural  affability,  or  policy,  he  set  himself  to  please  every, 
body,  and  especially  the  ministers.     He  courted  with  fawn- 

16 


182  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

ing  gaze,  one  after  the  other,  the  melancholy  figures  on  that 
bench  of  pain,  whereon  he  grew  impatient  and  fretful  that 
he  had  not  as  yet  a  scat. 

M.  Sauzet  has  what  we  call  good  natural  advantages,  a 
sonorous  voice,  a  pleasing  countenance,  a  prompt  intelli- 
gence, and  a  clear  and  easy  elocution.  His  voice  is  ample, 
and  perfectly  audible  throughout  the  Chamber.  There  are 
however  some  false  notes  in  its  intonation,  and  its  flagging 
cadences  fall  with  the  period. 

M.  Sauzet  is  mild,  polite,  affable,  moderate.  He  courts 
the  good-will  of  others  and  imparts  to  them  his  own.  There 
is  in  his  face,  his  sentiments,  and  his  language,  something  I 
know  not  what  of  honest  and  eno;aoino;  which  charms  and 
attracts  you.  With  a  mind  better  furnished  with  ideas  and 
of  a  more  practical  cast,  he  has  nearly  the  figurative  style 
and  cadenced  modulation  of  another  orator,  the  demi-god  of 
poetry.     He  is  M.  de  Lamartine  made  man. 

Memory  is  the  principal  agent  of  his  eloquence.  At  the 
age  of  ten,  he  used  to  recite,  word  for  word,  a  chapter  of 
Telemachus,  which  he  had  read  but  once.  He  can,  while 
speaking,  suppress  entire  fragments  of  his  discourse,  and 
substitute  new  portions,  which  he  inserts  into  the  same  tis- 
sue, as  properly  as  if  he  had  fastened  them  with  pins. 

His  intellect  is  wrought  to  a  point,  and  puns  occur  to  him 
so  familiarly  in  conversation,  that,  when  he  speaks  in  the 
tribune,  he  has  to  chase  them  away,  as  he  would  an  impor- 
tunate fly  that  should  keep  buzzing  at  his  ear. 

M.  Sauzet  is  the  type  of  the  provincial  orator.  His  pom- 
pous b'tyle  is  inflated  rather  than  full.  It  pleases  the  car, 
but  does  not  reach  the  soul.  He  seems  as  if  he  had  been 
spoiled  by  his  practice  in  the  Court  of  Assize.  He  squan- 
ders, by  handfuls,  the  brilliant  flowers  of  language,  the 
modulations  of  harmony,  rambling  epithets  and  college  met- 
aphors— an  obsolete  rhetoric,  which  has  now  scarce  name 
or  value  in  the  commerce  of  political  eloquence. 

It  is  not  that  I  blame  M.  Sauzet  for  having  recourse  be- 


SAUZET.  183 

fore  a  jury,  and  in  a  Court  of  Sessions,  to  these  pathetical 
means  of  saving  the  accused.  That  spectacle  of  a  woman 
in  tears  who  clasps  the  altars  of  mercy  and  of  justice — those 
heart-rending  cries  of  remorse — those  young  men  about  to 
be  cut  off  in  the  bloom  of  life  by  the  axe  of  the  executioner, 
like  the  lilies  of  spring  by  the  ploughshare — innocence 
struggling  against  the  terrors  of  punishment — the  dark  un- 
certainties of  the  prosecution,  those  glimmerings  of  doubt 
that  flit  before  you,  now  brightening,  then  expiring — those 
broken  sighs,  those  muttering  lips,  those  plaints,  those  im- 
plorings,  those  melting  images  of  a  young  and  helpless  fam- 
ily asking  back  its  father,  and  doomed  to  perish  if  he  perish, 
or  of  an  old  man  crowned  with  gray  hairs,  who  throws  him- 
self at  your  knees  to  expiate  the  involuntary  crime  of  a 
misguided  son  ; — all  this  is  drawn  from  nature,  all  this  has 
been  beautiful  in  its  time,  all  this  may  still  have  an  effect 
upon  fancies  easily  moved,  and  sensible,  like  unsophisticated 
men,  to  the  charm  of  public  speaking  and  the  exciting 
dramas  of  eloquence. 

But  to  deputies,  to  those  men  surfeited  with  intellectual 
delicacies,  to  those  cloyed  stomachs,  we  should  present  the 
viands  of  oratory  but  with  fresh  stimulants  and  fresh  season- 
ings. It  is  not  well  that  the  spectators  see  too  near  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  green-room,  lest  their  illusion  be  dispelled.  A 
discourse  should  not  have  too  much  pomp  and  savor  of  the 
stage.  The  great  art,  in  a  parliamentary  orator,  lies  in  his 
skill  to  conceal  art. 

It  is  said  that  M.  Sauzet  has  no  principles  :  but  where 
then,  pray,  is  the  practising  advocate  who  has  principles? 
When  a  man  has,  for  twenty  years  of  his  life,  been  labor- 
ing indifferently  in  the  cause  of  truth  and  of  falsehood  ; 
when  he  has  been  the  habitual-  and  hired  protector  and  con- 
cealer of  malice  and  fraud,  it  is  difficult,  it  is  impossible 
that  he  should  have  any  fixity  in  his  principles. 

The  lawyers  have  always  a  stock  of  fine  phrases  respect- 
ing what  they  call  their  professional  discretion. 


1 84  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

But,  v/ould  you  know  what  this  discretion  of  a  practising 
lawyer  comes  to  ?  Peter  sues  Paul ;  he  instantly  takes  a 
chaise,  and  drives  post  to  the  oflice  of  the  most  celebrated 
lawyer  in  the  city,  who  says  to  him  :  "  You  have  a  better 
case  than  Paul."  Paul,  who  started  later,  arrives  ten  min- 
utes after,  at  the  office  of  the  same  advocate,  who  tells  him  : 
"  You  have  a  better  case  than  Peter ;  but  what  can  I  do  ? 
he  was  before  you."  I  surely  do  not  mean  that  the  lawyer 
is  the  first-comer's  man  always,  but  almost  always. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  lawyers  carry  in  one  of  the 
pockets  of  their  robe,  the  reasons  for,  and  in  the  other,  the 
reasons  against  either  and  every  side.  But  they  sometimes 
mistake  the  right  pocket  in  the  hurry  of  pleading,  and  this 
is  why  their  conclusion  is  not  always  iii  very  perfect  accord 
with  their  exordium.  They  hardly  know  how  to  come  to 
a  decision,  and  are  never  very  sure  of  their  ground.  If 
they  press  upon  you  with  a  huge  argumentation,  you  .may 
hold  them  in  check  by  a  quite  trifling  objection.  To  them 
everything  presents  a  question,  everything  is  an  obstacle. 
Throw,  under  their  whirling  chariot-wheel,  a  grain  of  sand, 
they  will  climb  down  to  inspect  it,  instead  of  passing  it  over. 

They  will  deny,  with  the  sun  before  you,  that  it  is  day, 
and  if  you  begin  to  laugh,  they  will  undertake  to  convince 
you. 

Singular  fact !  These  men  who,  all  their  lives,  have  studied 
nothing  but  the  laws,  are  forever  in  doubt  about  the  laws. 

For  them  the  law  has  always  two  meanings,  two  accepta- 
tions, a  double  language  and  a  Janus  face. 

They  see  less. the  causes  than  the  effects,  the  spirit  than 
the  letter,  the  law  than  the  fact,  the  principle  than  the  applica- 
tion, and  the  plan  than  the  details. 

A  new  government,  monarchical,  aristocratical,  republi- 
can, or  of  whatever  sort,  ought  to  strive  to  gain  the  army 
by  honors,  the  commercial   classes    by  security,  and    the 
people  by  justice  :  it  need  not  concern  itself  about  the  law 
yers.     It  is  all  but  certain  to  have  them  in  its  favor. 


SAUZET.  185 

The  lawyers  have  the  art  of  keeping  up  a  revolution  by 
their  interminable  speeching  ;  but  it  is  never  they  who  begin 
nor  who  finish  it. 

There  is  no  truth  so  clear  that  they  do  not  tarnish,  by  dint 
of  polishing  it.  There  is  no  patience  of  ear  they  do  not 
weary  by  the  endless  flux  of  their  orations.  There  is  no 
reasoning,  be  it  ever  so  powerful  and  nervous,  that  does  not 
lose  in  their  hands,  by  dint  of  repetition,  its  elasticity  and 
vijxor. 

Do  not  hasten  to  think  they  will  enter  at  once  upon  the 
subject,  because  you  may  have  said  to  them  :  "  Well,  what 
do  you  wait  for;  go  on  !"  They  must  first  arrange  their 
rabat,  they  must  fix  their  cap  over  the  ear,  they  must  truss 
up  gracefully  the  flowing  folds  of  their  robe,*  they  must 
hem,  they  must  spit,  and  they  must  sneeze.  This  done,  they 
prelude  like  musicians  who  tune  their  violin,  or  dancing- 
girls  who  practise  their  capers  behind  the  curtain,  or  like 
the  rope-dancers,  making  trial  of  their  balancer.  They  keep 
bowing  and  turning  to  either  side  of  them  in  their  saluta- 
tions, and  it  takes  them  a  large  quarter- hour  of  oratorical 
precautions,  of  phrases,  of  periphrases,  of  circumlocutions, 
of  turnings  and  windings,  before  they  determine  to  say  at 
last :  Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  the  case  is  this. 

Let  no  one  say  to  me  :  Are  you  not  afraid  to  stir  up  against 
you  this  waspish  race  ?  You  have  there  taken  in  liand  a 
pretty  business,  and  truly,  I  admire  your  temerity  !  Ad- 
mire nothing,  for  you  know  as  well  as  I  do,  however  bad 
may  be  my  cause  against  the  lawyers,  I  will  find  lawyers  to 
plead  it ;  and  I  myself — is  it  that  you  think  I  am  not  equal 
to  my  own  defence  ? 

Who,  pray,  could  hinder  me  to  paint  them,  witli  their 
various  physiognomies,  as  they  are,  and  as  I  see  them  ? 
This  one,  for  example,  this  Ergaste,  merited  that  I  should 
draw  his  portrait  at  full  length.  But  I  have  sought  in  vain 
under  what  standard  and  colors  to  class  him.     In  what 

*  Neither  robe  nor  rabat  is  worn  in  this  country,  and  only  the  for- 
mer in  England. 

16* 


18G  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

memorable  parliamenlaiy  action  has  he  taken  any  part  ?  If 
the  debate  respect  material  interests,  Ergaste  speaks  and 
sheds  light  upon  the  subject  from  his  stores  of  knowledge. 
If  it  be  a  political  question — vast,  fundamental,  peremptory — 
he  is  silent  as  a  statue.  He  seems  to  possess  two  qualities, 
contradictory  of  one  another  :  by  character  he  is  concilia- 
tory, by  talent  he  is  aggressive. 

No  matter :  his  physiognomy  suits  the  fancy  of  my  pen- 
cil. Tlie  sunny  south  beams  in  his  burning  glance.  His 
hair  waves  gracefully  and  glossily,  his  voice  of  silvery 
distinctness  vibrates  upon  my  ear.  Ergaste  has  the  ges- 
tures, the  attitude,  the  eye,  the  animation  and  the  rapid 
impassionate  movements  of  the  orator.  He  does  not  ramble 
in  his  exordiums.  He  grapples  at  once  with  his  subject 
and  shakes  it  vigorously.  His  eloquence  is  nervous,  and 
there  is  muscle  and  life  in  his  discourses.  Ergaste  was 
born  an  orator.  It  has  been  his  will  to  remain  an  advocate. 
Well,  let  him  plead  at  the  bar,  let  him  plead  still  in  the  tri- 
bune, let  him  die  an  advocate  ! 

This  other  is  Cleophon,  who  perpetrates  wit  unintention- 
ally, by  sheer  naivete,  and  as  others  do  a  blunder.  At  the 
outset  of  his  legislative  career,  this  Norman  advocate  used 
to  pump  from  the  depths  of  his  thorax,  a  voice  which  he 
inflated  and  inflated  till  it  swelled  into  a  roar.  He  poured  it 
forth  at  random  and  tolled  it  as  loudly  as  the  cathedral  bell 
of  Rouen.  He  shook  the  old  hall  of  the  Palais  Bourbon, 
which,  to  say  truth,  was  not  very  solid,  and  the  colleaguee 
of  Cleophon  raised  their  eyes,  while  he  spoke,  to  the  shiver- 
ing windows  "of  the  cupola,  fearing  it  should  tumble  about 
their  ears. 

The  next  has  a  keen  and  intellectual  countenance,  and 
his  eloquence  flows  from  a  spring,  not  from  a  cistern.  But 
his  attitudinizing  is  too  studied,  too  ambitious.  He  does 
not  enough  forget  the  Court  of  Sessions,  and  speaks  before 
the  deputies,  as  if  he  was  before  a  jury.  Juries  are  gener- 
ally a  sort  of  well-meaning  men,  natural,  simple,  somewhat 
credulous,  confiding  ;  who  open  themselves  to  eniotion,  who 


SAUZET.  187 

invite  it,  who  absolutely  require  it,  and  who  allow  them- 
selves to  be  taken  and  led  captive  by  its  influence.  The 
deputies  are,  on  the  contrary,  an  artificial,  cold,  banter- 
ing, suspicious,  heartless  race,  who  resist  all  emotions  by 
a  sort  of  induration  of  the  political  lymph,  rather  than 
through  wisdom.  In  them  the  pulso  scarce  beats,  and  to 
draw  the  blood  demands  the  nicest  airoitness.  Here  is  no 
place  for  startling  effects,  or  oratorical  draperies,  or  high- 
flown  eloquence.  To  fix  tlie  attention  of  the  auditory  in  a 
deliberative  assembly,  to  keep  it  up,  to  suspend  and  then 
precipitate  it  and  force  it  along  with  you,  this  is  a  grand 
art.  It  is. the  art  of  the  consummate  orator  ;  and  Pherinte 
is  but  a  tvro. 

Oronte  spoils  his  exordiums  by  the  fastidious  superabun- 
dance of  his  oratorical  preliminaries.  You  would  say 
that  he  has  always  his  pockets  filled  with  flasks  of-  per- 
fumery, for  fear  of  offending  the  smell  of  his  auditors 
when  he  advances  to  address  them,  and  that  he  will  not 
touch  their  hand  but  with  gloves  of  the  finest  kid.  Ah  ! 
my  God  !  Be  not  so  squeamish.  Grasp  and  shake  vigor- 
ously these  hardened  reprobates  with  gauntlets  of  iron,  if 
you  can,  and  until  they  cry  out  for  mercy  !  Do  they  give 
quarter  to  the  people,  they,  who  take  them  by  the  throat 
and  plunder  them  of  the  best  of  their  substance? 

Isocles  is  a  man  of  probity,  conscience,  honesty,  no  one 
denies  it.  But,  by  an  awkward  contrast,  his  ideas  are 
often  trivial  and  his  expressions  inflated,  whereas  the  for- 
mer should  be  elevated  and  the  latter  simple.  Isocles  has 
brought  to  the  tribune  the  vicious  forms  of  the  bar,  and  the 
extravan^ant  gesticulation  of  the  Court  of  Sessions.  He 
takes  the  solemn  intonation  of  a  melo-dramatic  hero,  to  re- 
late the  smallest  fact.  He  is  moved  to  tears  over  the  dis- 
asters of  a  mortgage.  He  gets  into  a  towering  passion 
about  a  question  of  bankruptcy.  The  bar  is  not  always — 
far  from  it — a  good  school  of  politics.  The  practice  stifles 
all  originality  of  ijhought.  Lawyers  by  profession  make, 
ordinarily,   judges  without  decision  and  ministers  without 


188  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

views  and  vvithout  capacity,  diffuse,  hair-splitting,  redun- 
dant, declamatory.  Tliey  understand  nothing  of  State 
affairs.  It  is  but  after  an  hour's  exercise  that  they  begin  to 
warm,  that  the  blood  creeps  into  their  face  and  some  faith 
into  their  hearts.  Still  is  it  with  much  difficulty  that  they 
determine  to  come  to  any  conclusion,  and  they  would  cheer- 
fully render  thanks  to  the  assembly  which  would  permit 
them  to  remain  suspended  arms  aloft  and  erect  on  tip-toe, 
between  the  pro  and  the  con  of  the  question. 

A  government  of  sharpers  would  be  a  government  with- 
out morality  and  without  economy.  A  government  of 
soldiers  would  be  a  government  without  gentleness  and  with- 
out justice.  A  government  of  lawyers  would  be  a  govern- 
ment without  conviction,  without  ideas,  without  principles 
and  what  is  perhaps  worse,  without  action. 

Unfortunately  for  himself,  M.  Sauzet  has  not  put  off  the 
old  man,  his  lawyer's  gown.  He  empties  out,  good  or  bad, 
the  whole  contents  of  his  sack.  He  knows  not  how  to  re- 
strain his  intemperance  of  argument.  He  wants  the  skill 
to  choose,  to  pick  out  his  political  topics.  He  pleads  them 
all,  except  however  those,  mind  you,  which  might  compro- 
mise him  with  the  majority. 

M.  Sauzet  is  no  writer.  His  manner  is  that  of  rhetori- 
cians, feeble  and  tumid.  His  logic — which  is  not  the  exact- 
est,  does  not  proportion  his  consequences  to  their  principle. 

M.  Sauzet,  whether  from  mental  propensity,  or  imitation, 
or  calculation,  is  of  the  school  of  Martignac.  Less  temper- 
ate, less  graceful,  less  elegant,  less  adroit  than  his  master, 
but  more  copious,  more  vehement,  more  pathetic,  more  pic- 
turesque. Like  M.  de  Martignac,  he  parries  with  address, 
and  steps  aside  from  the  lance  of  the  antagonist.  He  does 
not  suffer  himself  easily  to  be  unl]orsed,  and  slides  to  the 
ground  rather  than  falls.  Like  Martignac,  he  continues 
still  a  worshipper  of  those  representative  forms  and  that  liol- 
low  and  metaphysical  constitutionalism  which  is  called  tlie 
balanced  government  of  three  powers.  Like  Martignac — • 
for  a  final  point  of  resemblance — rM.  Sauzet  resumes  admi- 


j3  A  U  Z  E  T  .  189 

rably  the  opinions  of  others,  and  acquits  himself  in  the 
most  intricate  discussions,  with  a  sagacity,  a  delicacy  and 
a  skill  that  have  not  been  duly  admired. 

With  what  profundity  of  science,  with  what  solidity  of 
sense,  with  what  dialectic  ability  he  has  conducted  the  de- 
bate upon  the  law  of  Mines !  The  more  his  language  is 
pompous  when  he  declaims,  too  pompous,  the  more  it  is  sim- 
ple, elegant,  and  beautiful  when  he  discusses.  He  over- 
looks no  grave  objection,  and  he  appends  the  reply  at  the 
instant.  He  is  never  afraid  of  breaking  through,  because 
he  knows  where  he  is  about  to  put  his  foot.  He  does  not 
allow  himself  to  be  provoked  to  offensive  personalities,  nor 
does  he  substitute  epigrams  to  arguments,  or  hypotheses  to 
the  realities  of  the  question.  His  mind  maintains  all  its 
firmness  and  all  its  presence,  and  his  march  is  always  pro- 
gressive, logical  and  steady.  M.  Sauzet  may  console  him- 
self for  the  fall  of  his  oratorical  reputation.  He  will  be, 
whenever  he  wishes,  the  first  business  orator  of  the  Cham- 
ber, and  what  is  there  higher  than  this  ? 

I  am  not  surprised  that  he  presided  over  the  Council  of 
State  with  so  remarkable  a  superiority.  He  should  have 
been  left  at  the  head  of  this  great  body  of  administrative 
magistracy.     That  was  his  talent,  that  was  his  place. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  ever  heard,  since  M.  de  Mar- 
tignac,  a  more  intelligent  and  fluent  reporter ;  and  M.  Sau- 
zet owes  this  advantage  to  a  union  of  the  three  quaUties 
which  constitute  eminence  in  this  line  :  namely,  perspicuity, 
memory,  and  impartiality. 

I  have  now  balanced,  I  think  with  sufficient  exactness,  the 
defects  and  the  excellencies  of  M.  Sauzet,  as  an  orator,  as  a 
president,  and  as  a  framer  of  reports  ;  and  you  will  deem 
with  me,  reader,  that  I  have  assigned  him  a  position  still 
sufficiently  handsome.  But  I  should  not  find  it  equally  easy 
to  follow  and  excuse  him  in  his  political  vagaries. 

Of  M.  Sauzet,  I  several  years  ago  thus  wrote : 

M.  Sauzet  is  not  decidedly  either  Legitimist,  or  Third- 
party  ite,  or  Dynastic,  or  Republican.     But  he  is  at  once  a 


190  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

little  of  all  this.  He  will  take  his  seat  by  M.  Berryer.  He 
would  have  no  objection  to  vote  with  M.  Dupin.  He  will 
support  the  ministry  of  Odillon-Barrot,  and  he  would  not  re- 
nounce entirely  Garnier-Pages.  He  is  one  of  those  good, 
happy,  and  easy  natures  which  heaven,  in  the  treasures  of 
its  mercy,  had  reserved  for  the  tempting  experiments  of  our 
well-beloved  monarch. 

M.  Sauzet  was  not  slow,  in  fact,  to  be  taken  as  I  had  pre- 
dicted. He  passed  his  arms  through  the  long  sleeves  of  the 
simar,  and  postured  himself,  as  well  as  he  could,  in  the 
chair  of  d'Augesseau. 

Afterwards,  forced  to  quit  the  tassels  of  gold  and  er- 
mine, he  slid  into  the  train  of  M.  Thiers,  firing  off  squibs, 
as  a  boy  his  pop-gun,  without  attracting  a  great  deal  of  no- 
tice. 

You  will  see,  I  said,  that  he  will  be  sent  back  to  sing  in 
the  choirs ;  he  who  might  be  one  of  the  first  tenors  of  the 
troupe,  and  that,  instead  of  having  a  value  of  his  own,  and 
signifying  something,  M.  Sauzet  will  be  by  and  by  but  a 
secondary  utility,  fit  at  most  to  make  a  keeper  of  the  seals  ! 

And  knowing  no  longer  what  to  make  of  him,  I  added : 

Where  does  M.  Sauzet  sit  at  present  ?  On  what  side  ? 
With  whom?  What  are  his  doctrines  ?  Who  are  his  friends  ? 
Whom  does  he  follow  ?  Whom  does  he  lead  ?  Is  this  a 
position  ?  is  this  a  character  ?  Ta  begin  by  demanding  the 
amnesty  and  end  by  voting  the  confiscation  of  the  press  and 
the  transportations  to  Salazie  !  What  a  debut  and  what  a 
fall !  This  infamous  post  fulfilled,  the  Doctrinarians  slighted 
and  treated  him  with  scorn. 

Since  then,  fortune  has  again  veered  round,  and  behold 
him  seated  in  the  first  post  of  the  State,  after  that  of  king. 
He  presides  over  and,  consequently  represents,  the  Chamber 
if  you  take  his  own  word  for  it ;  in  like  manner  as  the 
Chamber  represents  the  Country,  if  it  too  is  to  be  believed. 
Very  fine  this,  if  it  were  only  true  ! 

But  as  the  representation  of  France  is  but  a  fiction  in  the 
person  of  the  Chamber,  the  representation  of  the  Chamber 


SAUZET.  191 

might  Well  be  likewise  no  more  than  a  fiction  in  the  presi- 
dent. 

Nevertheless,  we  are  ordered  bv  authority  of  the  Doctri- 
narians,  to  prostrate  ourselves  in  gaping  admiration  of  the 
hierarchical  gradation  of  the  British  constitution,  as  if  there 
was  the  least  resemblance  between  the  most  democratical 
of  all  democratical  people  and  the  most  aristocratic  of  alt 
aristocracies  !  With  our  neighbors,  there  is  at  least  some 
reality,  some  truth  in  these  institutions,  because  they  corres- 
pond to  their  manners,  to  their  social  condition,  to  their  ideas, 
to  their  prejudices,  if  you  will.  With  us,  all  is  fiction — 
both  persons  and  principles. 

Accordingly,  to  say  what  were  yesterday,  what  are  to- 
day, what  will  be  to-morrow  the  principles  of  the  Chamber, 
would  be  no  easy  task.  To  say  what  are,  at  the  moment  I 
write,  the  principles  of  M.  Sauzet,  were  a  task  more  em- 
barrassing still ;  and,  in  truth,  it  is  a  knowledge  of  little 
consequence  either  to  the  Chamber,  or  to  M.  Sauzet  himself, 
nor  more  to  me. 

For  the  rest,  the  principle  which  every  President  of  the 
Chamber,  without  allusion  to  any  in  particular,  seems  to 
comprehend  the  best  is,  that  he  is  to  pocket,  and  does  in  fact, 
pocket  punctually,  some  hundred  thousand  francs,  for  ring- 
ing his  bell,  tapping  with  his  penknife  on  the  desk,  and  re- 
peating  twenty,  thirty,  forty  times,  during  the  same  sitting, 
the  following  sacramental  words:  "  Let  those  of  the  mem- 
bers who  are  in  favor  of  adopting  the  motion  please  to  stand 
up,  and  let  those  gentlemen  who  are  of  the  contrary  opinion 
please  to  rise  !" 

Think  you  not,  reader,  that  so  interesting  a  piece  of  work 
is  well  worth  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  besides  lodging,  an 
equipage  and  servants  ?  and  for  my  part,  I  really  do  not 
deem  it  at  all  too  much. 

When  Giton  and  Thersite,  these  pests  of  the  tribune, 
begin  to  harangue  in  the  Areopagus,  I  can,  I  Timon,  give 
a  drachme  or  two  to  the  door-keeper  to  let  me  out  and  I  get 
into  the  open  plains. 


11  E  V  O  L  U  T  I  O  N      O  F     JULY. 

* 

But  to  be  officially  nailed  to  one's  chair,  to  be  obliged  to 
hear  Giton  and  Thersile  from  noon  to  sundown,  without 
being  able  to  fly  them,  nor  to  escape  them — no,  for  a  trade 
of  this  torture,  a  hundred  thousand  francs  is  not  excessive, 
and  I  am  sure  that  I  would  not  be  willing  to  earn  them. 


GENERAL  LAFAYETTE. 

Public  opinion  has  its  prejudices.  Thus,  it  has  been 
said  of  three  persons  of  the  liberal  party — Lafitte,  Dupont 
de'l'Eure  and  Lafayette — that  Lafitte  did  not  compose  his 
own  discourses,  that  Dupont  de'l'Eure  was  merely  a  good 
man,  and  that  Lafayette  was  but  a  simpleton. 

But,  Lafitte  was  the  most  clear-headed  and  comprehen- 
sive financier  of  our  times.  The  good  sense  of  Dupont 
de'l'Eure,  as  far  as  it  goes,  is  said  to  prove,  like  Phocion's, 
the  axe  to  many  a  labored  speech.  But  Lafayette  was  a 
mere  simpleton  ;  oh  !  quite  simple,  I  own :  he  believecf,  as 
did  a  multitude  of  simpletons  which  we  have  all  been  in 
common  with  him,  in  the  promises  of  the  government  of 
July. 

He  imagined,  the  simpleton !  that  kings  were  to  be 
found  who  would  not  resemble  all  other  kings;  that  a 
man  must  love  liberty  because  he  drawls  out  some  hurras 
in  honor  of  it  j  that  we  were  brought  round  to  the  golden 
age  ;  that  the  reins  might  be  thrown  loose  upon  the  back 
of  the  government,  and  it  would  curb  itself.  Subsequently 
when  he  saw  that  the  same  piece  continued  to  be  played 
day  after  day  upon  the  great  stage,  and  that  the  only  change 
of  decoration  was,  the  substitution  of  a  dunghill  cock  for  the 
lily,  he  repented,  wept  bitterly,  and  striking  his  breast  ex- 
claimed :  "  Pardon  me,  my  God  !  pardon  me,  beloved  com- 
rades in  liberty  !  I  have  been  a  dupe  and  a  duper." 


GENERAL     LAFAYETTE.  193 

■  Not  a  duper,  I  can  well  believe  ;  but  it  was  too  much 
for  you,  Lafayette,  to  have  been  a  dupe  !  Few  are  the 
men  to  whom  Providence  has  given  the  opportunity  and 
the  means  of  regenerating  their  country  and  establishing 
its  liberties.  To  lose  this  opportunity  is  a  crime  against 
one's  country. 

Lafayette  has  committed  two  great  faults  from  which 
posterity  will  not  absolve  him.  In  making  to  Napoleon, 
after  the  defeat  of  Waterloo,  an  opposition  in  the  tribune 
and  the  cabinet,  he  divided  our  forces,  and  was  thus  co- 
operating, without  meaning  it,  to  the  dismemberment  of 
France.  He  failed  to  see,  like  the  great  Carnot,  that  Napo- 
leon alone  could  then  save  the  country,  that  the  independ- 
ence  of  the  nation  ought  so  to  fill  the  soul  of  the  citizen, 
that  (to  compare  small  things  with  great,)  I  would  not  hesi- 
tate myself  despite  of  my  "repugnance,"  as  Manuel  would 
'  say,  to  take  sides  with  a  certain  personage,  if  I  were  well 
convinced  that  the  said  personage  alone  would,  in  a  given 
case,  prevent  the  subjugation  and  partition  of  France. 
For,  before  all  liberty,  before  any  form  of  government, 
before  any  political  or  social  organization,  before  any 
administrative  system,  before  anything  and  all  things — the 
safely  of  the  nation  ! 

The  second  fault  of  Lafayette  was  that  of  July.  The 
imperial  throne  was  vacant.  Lafayette  reigned  the  third 
day  over  Paris,  and  Paris  reigned  over  France.  Three 
parties  were  in  deliberation.  We  know  what  was  expected 
by  the  army  and  the  people.  But  Lafayette  allowed  him- 
self to  be  wheedled  by  the  Orleanists.  The  tri-colored  flag 
was  played  off  before  the  old  man's  eyes.  He  was  seized 
by  the  hand  and  covered  with  caresses.  His  head  was 
turned  'with  loud-sounding  flourishes  about  '89,  Jemappe, 
Valmy,  America,  liberty,  national  guard,  republican  mon- 
archy, citizen,  transatlantic,  and  what  not?  In  short,  in 
the  open  Place  de  Greve  and  in  presence  of  the  people,  he 
was  put  under  the  goblet  and  fingered  away. 

Lafayette,  in  his  infantine  candor,  did  not  advert  that  he 

17 


194  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

had  to  do  with  profligates  more  profligate  than  those  of  the 
regency.  When  the  patriots  confided  their  alarms  to  him^ 
he  put  a  hand  to  his  heart  and  pledged  his  own  fidelity  to 
liberty,  for  the  fidelity  of  the  others.  In  his  deplorable 
blindness,  he  left  everything  to  the  management  of  the 
majority  of  the  Chambers  of  1830,  who  had  in  fact  done 
nothing,  and  left  nothing  to  the  disposal  of  the  people  who 
had  brought  all  about.  Had  not  the  patriots  taken  the  word 
of  Lafayette,  who  repeated  to  them  naively  what  he  was 
told,  things  would  have  been  arranged  in  a  different  man- 
ner,  and  it  would  not  be  now  forbidden,  by  the  laws  of 
September,  to  write  the  history  of  that  other  day  of  Dupes, 
which  none  could  do  w^ith  more  fidelity  than  I,  as  the  whole 
thing  was  acted  behind  the  curtain  where  I  was,  and  I  alone 
took  no  part  in  the  farce. 

Lafayette  was  not  an  orator,  if  we  understand  by  oratory 
that  emphatic  and  loud-sounding  verbosity  which  stuns  the 
auditors  and  leaves  but  wind  in  the  ear.  His  was  a  serious 
and  familiar  conversation,  grammatically  incorrect  if  you 
will,  and  a  little  redundant,  but  cut  into  curt  phrases  and 
relieved  occasionally  by  happy  turns.  No  figures,  no 
highly-colored  imagery ;  but  the  proper  word  in  the  proper 
place,  the  precise  word  which  expresses  the  exact  idea — no 
passionate  transports,  but  a  speech  infused  with  feeling  by 
the  accent  of  conviction — no  strong,  cogent,  elaborate  logic, 
but  reasonings  systematically  combined,  obviously  con- 
nected amongst  each  other,  and  resulting  naturally  from 
the  exposition  of  the  facts. 

There  was  in  the  habits  of  his  person  and  in  his  counte- 
nance, I  know  not  what  mixture  of  French  grace,  American 
phlegm  and  Roman  placidity. 

When  he  ascended  the  tribune  and  said :  "  I  am  a  repub- 
lican," no  one  felt  tempted  to  ask  him  :  "  What  is  that  you 
say.  Monsieur  de  Lafayette,  and  wherefore  the  declaration  ?'* 
Every  one  was  satisfied  the  friend  of  Washington  could  not 
hut  be  a  republican. 

He  had  a  habit  of  sneaking  freely  of  the  kinffs  o^  Eu- 


GENERAL     LAFAYETTE.  195 

rope,  whom  he  treated  unceremoniously  as  despots,  and  as 
one  power  would  another.  He  stirred  up  against  them,  in 
his  wide  propagandism,  all  the  fires  of  popular  insurrection. 
To  the  oppressed  of  every  country  he  opened  his  house,  his 
purse  and  his  heart. 

He  should  be  seen  when  he  resisted  in  the  tribune  the 
dastardly  abandonment  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Poles.  Then 
did  his  overflowinfj  indio;nation  rush  on  like  a  torrent ;  his 
virtue  was  eloquence,  and  his  language,  ordinarily  cheerful, 
was  charcred  with  fire  and  licrhtninsr. 

Lafayette  had  what  is  better  than  ideas,  he  had  principles, 
fundamental  principles,  to  which  he  ever  adhered  with  an 
immovable  pertinacity.  He  wished  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  both  in  theory  and  practice ;  and,  in  truth,  this  is  the 
whole.  But  be  troubled  himself  no  more  about  the  tyranny 
of  all  or  of  several,  than  that  of  one.  He  considered  the 
substance  rather  than  the  form,  justice  rather  than  the  laws, 
principles  before  governments,  and  the  human  race  before 
nations.  He  would  have  free  minorities  under  a  dominant 
majority. 

When  the  sturdiest  characters  gave  way,  when  the  finest 
geniuses  passed  one  after  another,  under  the  yoke  of  Napo- 
leon, and  the  nation,  infatuated  with  his  glory  and  conquests, 
ran  to  meet  his  triumphal  car,  Lafayette  resisted  the  current 
of  fortune  and  of  men,  witiiout  violence  to  others  or  strug- 
gle with  himself,  simply  by  the  immovability  of  his  convic- 
tions, like  a  rock  that  stands  stirless  amid  the  conflicting  agi- 
tation  of  the  waves. 

The  love  of  gold,  from  which  kings  themselves  are  not 
exempt,  had  no  place  in  his  great  soul.  The  vulgar  ambi- 
tion of  a  throne  was  far  beneath  him  ;  and  at  the  utmost 
what  he  would  desire  would  have  been  to  be  Washington, 
if  he  had  not  been  Lafayette. 

Lafayette  experienced,  even  in  his  old  age,  that  yearning  of 
affectionate  hearts  to  be  universally  loved.  But  this  noble 
propension,  so  delightful  to  indulge  in  private  life,  is  almost 
always  dangerous  in  political  affairs.     A  true  statesman  must 


196  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

be  ready  to  sacrifice  liis  friendships  and  his  popularity  itself 
for  the  interests  of  his  country. 

The  Revolution  of  July  was  executed  by  the  school 
students  of  the  middle  classes  and  of  the  people,  and  con- 
ducted by  two  old  men,  Lafitte  and  Lafayette.  The  former 
commenced  the  movement  by  the  lever  of  his  popularity 
and  his  credit,  and  Lafayette  accomplished  it  by  means  of 
the  tri-colored  flag,  and  the  bayonets  of  the  National  Guard. 

Strange  inventions  of  modern  genius  !  The  telescope  has 
peopled  the  firmament  with  worlds  of  stars.  The  compass 
has  discovered  America.  The  invention  of  gunpowder  has 
changed  the  system  of  warfare.  Paper  money  has  over- 
thrown feudalism,  by  the  substitution  of  movable  wealth, 
commercial  and  industrial,  to  landed  wealth  and  predomi- 
nance. Printing  has  pierced  a  thousand  mouths  in  the 
trumpet  of  fame.  Steam  has  supplied,  on  land  and  water, 
the  motive  power  of  horses,  water,  and  wind.  In  fine,  the 
National  Guard  h"as  taken  the  government  out  of  the  abso- 
lute hands  of  the  king,  to  restore  it  to  those  of  the  country. 
Li  fact,  the  National  Guard  of  each  village  is  master  of  the 
village,  of  each  town  of  the  town,  of  each  city  of  the  city, 
and  the  Guards  united  of  all  the  villages,  towns  and  cities, 
are  masters  of  France.  What  I  say  of  France  may  be  said 
of  all  Europe;  for  it  may  trdly  be  said  that,  throughout 
all  the  rest  of  Europe,  the  muskets  are  ready,  the  matches 
are  ready,  the  banner  is  ready,  and  there  remains  but  to 
issue  the  proclamation  and  appoint  the  officers.  And  it  hap- 
pens, as  if  by  I  know  not  what  providential  design,  that  the 
most  revolutionary  of  all  institutions  has  been  invented  and 
put  in  practice  by  the  most  I'evolutionary  of  all  men. 

Yes,  Lafayette  has  been  the  man  the  most  frankly  and 
resolutely  revolutionary  of  our  time.  He  entered  with  ardor, 
with  impetuosity  into  every  combination  which  had  for  its 
object  the  subversion  of  some  despotism,  and  life  was  with 
him  a  stake  of  no  great  account.  Martyr  to  his  political 
faith,  he  would  have  mounted  the  scaffold  and  held  out  his 
head  to  the  executioner,  with  the  serenity  of  a  young  wo- 


GENERAL     LAFAYETTE.  197 

man  who,  crowned  with  roses,  drops  into  slumber  at  the 
close  of  a  banquet. 

It  is  confidently  reported  that  after  the  funeral  oration  of 
General  Lamarque,  certain  conspirators  entertained  tlie  hor- 
rible design  to  kill  Lafayette  in  the  carriage  in  which  they 
led  him  back  in  triumph,  and  to  exhibit  his  bloody  corpse  to 
the  people,  like  Anthony,  in  order  to  excite  them  to  insur- 
rection ;  which  having  been  after  related  to  Lafayette,  he 
only  smiled,  as  if  he  considered  the  thing  natural  and  an  in- 
genious stratagem ! 

I  have  the  idea,  but  do  not  affirm  it — for  who  could  affirm 
or  gainsay  it — that  Lafayette,  on  his  death-bed,  in  the  last 
lullings  of  thought,  flattered  himself  that  an  insurrection  of 
Jhe  people  might  possibly  break  out  on  the  passage,  of  his 
remains  to  the  grave,  to  reannnate  liberty  and  illustrate  his 
obsequies  ! 

There  are  many  fiery  lovers  of  democracy  who  might  be, 
as  far  as  the  thing  is  now  possible,  aristocrats,  if  they  were 
born  among  the  aristocracy.  It  is  difficult  to  determine 
whether  such  are  of  the  liberal  party  from  spite  or  from  con- 
viction ;  and  their  love  of  equality  is  often  but  an  arrogant 
covetousness  of  privileges  which  they  do  not  enjoy.  But 
when  men  of  birth  become  democrats,  the  people  surround 
them  with  their  confidence,  because  these  have  honored  the 
popular  cause  by  a  costly  abjuration.     Such  was  Lafayette. 

He  retained,  of  the  old  aristocracy,  but  that  refined  and 
sprightly  naivete,  which  is  the  grace  of  speech,  and  that 
elegant  simplicity  of  manners,  which  is  passed  away  and 
will  never  return.  But  his  soul  was  entirely  plebeian.  He 
loved  the  people  in  his  heart,  as  a  father  loves  his  children, 
ready  at  all  hours  of  the  day  or  the  night,  to  rise,  to  march, 
to  fight,  to  suffer,  to  conquer  or  be  conquered,  to  sacrifice 
himself  for  it  without  reserve,  with  his  fame,  his  fortune, 
his  liberty,  his  blood  and  his  life. 

Illustrious  citizen  !  contemporary  at  once  of  our  fathers 
and  our  children,  placed,  as  if  to  open  and  to  close  it,  at  the 
two  extremities  of  this  heroic  half-century,  you  have  wit- 

17* 


198  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

nessed  the  death  of  the  revolution  of  1789,  beneath  the  . 
of  a  soldier,  and  that  of  the  revolution  of  1830,  under 
cat-o'-nine-tails  of  the  Doctrinarians ;  and,  notwithstandin 
this  twofold  failure,  you  did  not  regret  what  you  had  accom- 
plished for  them,  for  you  knew  that  everything  has  its  due 
time,  and  that,  though  it  may  germinate  and  flourish  more 
or  less  slowly,  not  a  grain  is  lost  of  the  seed  which  is  sown 
in  the  fields  of  republicanism !  You  knew  that  all  nations, 
some  by  the  direct  paths,  others  by  oblique  routes,  are  ad- 
vancing towards  tlieir  emancipation  with  the  irresistibility 
of  the  current  which  empties  the  waters  of  all  the  tributary 
rivers  into  the  sea,  and  you  moved  on,  with  head  erect  and 
hopeful  heart,  along  the  highways  of  truth  !  I  thank  you, 
generous  old  man,  for  not  having  been  shaken  in  your  faith 
in  the  eternal  sovereignty  of  the  nations,  and  for  having  al- 
ways sacredly  preferred  the  proscribed  to  their  oppressors, 
the  people  to  their  tyrants !  When  the  veil  of  a  patriotic 
but  deplorable  illusion  fell  from  your  eyes  and  showed  you 
the  present  generation,  with  its  gangrened  sores  and  its  dy- 
ing languors,  you  turned  consoled  to  the  vitality,  the  virtue, 
and  the  greatness  of  future  generations  ;  you  did  not  allow 
yourself  to  be  overcome,  like  Benjamin  Constant,  by  the 
melancholy  of  disgust,  and  you  were  worthy  of  liberty  be- 
cause you  never  despaired  of  her  cause  ! 


ODILLON-BARROT.  199 


ODILLON-BARROT. 

Odillon-Barrot  does  not  possess,  like  Maguin,  one  of 
those  lithe  and  spiritual  figures  which  twirl  about  incessant- 
ly as  on  a  pivot,  and  which,  reflecting  both  shade  and  light, 
both  force  and  grace,  please  when  painted,  by  the  variety  of 
ornaments  and  the  bold  vivacity  of  lineament  and  coloring. 

Odillon-Barrot  is  marked  rather  by  the  imposing  and  staid 
wisdom  of  the  philosopher  than  the  capricious  activity  and 
brilliant  impetuosity  of  the  extemporizers.  His  intellect, 
like  a  fruit  precocious  but  sound,  has  ripened  before  its  time. 
He  was,  at  four-and-twenty,  an  advocate  of  the  Councils 
and  of  the  Court  of  Cassation.  Nicod  was  the  dialectitian 
of  his  companions  ;  Odillon-Barrot  was  the  orator. 

Half  lawyer,  half  politician,  Odillon-Barrot  had  already, 
under  the  Restoration,  set  his  name  beside  the  most  celebrat- 
ed names  of  the  Opposition,  and  liberty  was  proud  in  num- 
berinir  him  amonsr  her  defenders. 

Odillon-Barrot  studies  little  and  reads  little  ;  he  meditates. 
His  mind  has  no  activity  and  can  scarce  keep  awake  but  in 
the  upper  regions  of  thought.  A  minister,  he  would  lan- 
guish and  be  dangerously  dilatory  in  matters  of  application. 
He  would  be  more  fit  to  direct  than  to  execute,  and  would 
excel  much  less  in  action  than  in  counsel.  He  would  neg- 
lect the  details  and  daily  current  of  business,  not  that  he 
was  unqualified  for  it,  but  he  would  be  inattentive  to  it. 

He  sheds  his  own  fertility  upon  the  subject,  rather  than 
borrows  any  from  it.  He  culls  off*  it  but  the  blossom,  he 
touches  but  the  elevations.  He  reflects  rather  than  observes. 
What  strikes  him  first  in  a  subject  is  its  general  aspect;  and 
this  mode  of  viewing  things  arises  from  the  particular  aptitude 
of  his  mind,  from  the  exercise  of  the  tribune  and  the  practice  of 
his  former  calling  as  advocate  of  the  Court  of  Cassation.  No 
man  is  more  capable  of  making  an  abstract  and  presenting 


200  KE  VOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

a  summary  of  a  theory  ;  and  I  regard  Odillon-Barrot  as  the 
first  generalizer  of  the  Chamber.  He  even  possesses  this 
faculty  in  a  higher  degree  than  M.  Guizot,  who  brings  it  to 
bear  but  ujoon  certain  points  of  philosophy  and  politics, 
whereas  Odillon-Barrot  improvisates  his  generalizations  with 
remarkable  power,  upon  the  first  question  that  offers.  Both 
are  dogmatic,  like  all  theorists.  Both  positive,  but  M.  Gui- 
zot more  ;  for  Guizot  doubts  less  than  Odillon-Barrot.  He 
decides  more  promptly,  and  carries  his  resolution  into  effect 
with  the  energy  and  determination  of  his  character. 

Odillon-Barrot  is  an  honest  man,  a  quality  which  I  am 
ashamed  to  praise,  but  which,  however,  I  am  obliged  to 
praise,  since  it  is  so  rare.  No  manager,  no  intriguer,  and 
scarce  ambitious.  His  political  reputation  is  high  and  with- 
out a  stain  ;  his  eloquence  is  always  ready  when  the  cause 
is  generous,  always  at  the  service  of  the  oppressed.  Odillon- 
Barrot  enjoys  electoral  popularity,  but  not  popular  popular- 
ity. At  the  same  time,  it  appears  hard  to  conceive  that 
Odillon-Barrot  .is  not  at  heart  a  radical  by  sentiment  of 
equality,  by  experience  of  monarchical  government,  by  con- 
scious dignity  of  manhood,  by  foresight  of  the  future.  How 
is  it,  then,  that,  in  the  tribune,  he  is  so  prone,  uselessly 
enough,  to  make  dynastical  professions  of  faith  ?  This  is 
sometimes  explained  by  saying  that  he  feels  for  the  person 
of  Louis-Philippe  a  sort  of  unaccountable  predilection  which 
captivates  and  enthralls  him.  But  we  are  very  sure  that 
Odillon-Barrot  docs  not  love  Louis-Philippe  upon  whatever 
conditions,  after  the  manner  of  his  domestics,  liveried  in  silk 
and  gold,  and  that  he  would  not  hesitate  a  single  instant, 
were  he  obliged  to  choose,  between  the  cause  of  the  country 
and  the  Ordinances  of  another  July. 

Odillon-Barrot  has  a  beautiful  and  meditative  countenance. 
His  vast  and  well-developed  forehead  announces  the  power 
of  his  intellect.  Plis  voice  is  full  and  sonorous,  and  his  ex- 
pression singularly  grave.  In  dress,  he  is  somewhat  fini- 
cal, which  does  not  misbecome  him.  His  attitude  is  digni- 
fied without  hcinfy  theatrical,  and  his  tjesticulation  is  full  of 


O  D  1  L  L  O  N  -  B  A  R  R  O  T .  20.1 

noble  simplicity.  When  speaking,  he  animates,  intonates, 
kindles,  colors  his  expression,  which  is  cold  and  dull  when 
he  writes.  His  discussion  is  solid  and  learned,  strong  in 
matter,  sufficiently  ornate,  and  always  swayed  by  his  elevat- 
ed reason.  He  is  apt  to  apply  himself  less,  in  a  cause,  to 
.the  point  of  fact  than  the  question  of  laW:  He  seizes  it, 
sounds  it,  turns  it  over,  and  extracts  from  it  its  whole  con- 
tents of  new  views  and  broad  and  salient  considerations. 

His  method  is,  at  the  same  time,  not  without  defect.  He 
is  often  embarrassed  amid  the  prolixities  of  his  exordium. 
He  loses  himself  also  in  the  breadth  of  his  conceptions,  and 
rejoins  them  with  great  difficulty  when  their  thread  is  bro- 
ken. In  like  manner,  he  does  not  precipitate  sufficiently 
rapidfy  his  harangues  to  an  end.  Perhaps,  indeed,  this 
affects  me  more  disagreeably  than  another,  as  I  like  above 
all  things  that  the  discourse  be  substantial  and  compressed. 
I  must  allow,  however,  that  Odillon-Barrot  is  more  abundant 
than  diffuse,  and  there  is  pleasure  in  accompanying  him  to 
the  chase  of  ideas,  whil-e  your  vulgar  rhetoricians  pursue 
and  catch  but  phrases. 

Odillon-Barrot  is  more  reasoning  than  ingenious,  more 
disdainful  than  bitter,  more  temperate  than  vehement.  His 
eye  wants  fire.  You  do  not  feel  enough  his  breast  heave 
and  his  heart  bound  against  the  oppression  of  despotism. 
Too  often  his  vigor  flags  and  fails,  and  his  weapon  weighs 
him  down  before  the  close  of  the  combat. 

Master  of  his  passions  and  of  his  words,  he  calms  with- 
in him  and  around  him,  the  wrath  of  the  Centre  and  the 
turbulence  of  the  Left.  He  prepares  and  covers  the  re- 
treat, in  the  most  difficult  passes,  with  the  ability  of  a  con- 
summate strategist:  he  is  the  FabiusCunctator  of  the  Oppo- 
sition. Unhappily,  these  tactics  of  temporization,  when  too 
often  repeated,  damp  parliamentary  courage,  not  already 
very  daring.  The  part  of  the  Opposition  is  not  to  hide  itself 
behind  the  baggage-carts,  but  to  push  energetically  to  the 
front  of  battle.     When  the  people  do  not  see  their  defenders 


202  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

mount  tlie  breach  and  fire,  they  become  lukewarm,  yawn, 
turn  away  and  go  in  quest  of  other  spectacles. 

The  orators  are  the  spoiled  children  of  the  press;  and 
as  spoiled  children  beat  their  nurse,  the  orators  are  in  the 
tribune,  constantly  abusing  the  press.  It  is  very  much 
also  the  fault  of  the  press  itself,  for  you  see  it  go  into  ec- 
stasy at  every  word  that  drops  from  the  lips  of  these  parlia- 
mentary heroes,  and  receive  their  rhapsodies  so  preciously 
in  its  finest  linen,  as  if  they  were  so  many  venerable  and 
saintly  relics.  There  is  perhaps  not  one  of  our  orators, 
dynastic  or  ministerial,  who  has  not  been  told  a  hundred 
times  that  he  was  beautiful,  sublime,  admirable;  and  who, 
incensed  all  over  with  their  praises,  does  not  fancy  himself 
in  fact  a  little  marvel  of  eloquence,  quite  on  a  levdT  with 
Cicero  or  Demosthenes.  Are  you  now  astonished  that 
these  gentlemen  assume  incredible  airs  of  vanity,  and  that 
their  head  is  turned  under  the  fanning  of  these  adulations'? 
I  myself,  notwithstanding  the  misanthropy  with  which  I  am 
reproached,  I  have  yielded,  I  yield  at  the  moment  I  write, 
to  this  amiable  weakness  of  the  press,  and  have  too  much 
moderated  the  impetuosity  and  ardor  of  my  pencil.  In 
truth  it  would  be  small  harm  to  extol  the  oratorical  merits 
of  our  discoursers ;  it  would  be  at  most  a  fault  of  taste.  But 
there  is  something  of  a  nature  more  gross  in  this  sort  of  in- 
fatuation ;  in  fact  we  have  witnessed  so  many  somersets 
of  opinion,  that  one  cannot  be  too  much  on  guard  against 
the  political  probity  of  the  most  illustrious  of  our  parliamen- 
tarians. It  is  constantly  to  be  dreaded  that  they  will  seek 
to  reinstate  themselves  in  the  favor  of  heaven,  and  ofier  us, 
after  the  example  of  M.  Thiers,  the  edification  of  one  day 
seeing  them  on  both  knees,  invoking  divine  Providence.  It 
is  well  therefore  to  keep  a  stiff  rein  to  them,  and  not  to  spare 
the  spurs  when  they  halt  or  slacken  pace  upon  a  fair 
road,  nor  even  the  lash  when  they  deal  some  joltings  to 
liberty. 

It  is  a  misfortune  to  Odillon-Barrot  not  to  have  by  him  a 
single  friend,  that  is  to  say,  a  man  who  would  tell  him  the 


O  1)  I  L  L  O  N  -  B  A  R  R  O  T .  203 

truth.  He  has  been  spoiled  by  dint  of  doing  reverence  to 
his  eloquence  and  virtues.  He  is  so  bepuffed  that  he  will 
by  and  by  be  inflated  into  a  wind-bag.  It  will  be  carried 
so  far  as  to  make  him  believe  that  the  consequences  he  in- 
sists upon  are  always  exactly  in  accord  with  the  principles 
which  he  does  not  possess ;  that  his  vague  theses  do  not 
evaporate  in  mist,  and  that  his  moderation  never  sinks  into 
the  langour  of  impotence. 

Who  does  not  remember  the  Opposition  of  fifteen  years 
ago  ?  At  rare  intervals,  but  in  compact  array,  night  and 
day,  it  kept  watch,  armed,  marched,  fought.  It  did  not 
wait  till  confronted  by  danger,  it  rushed  to  meet  it.  A 
minister  had  scarce  done  violatino;  the  domicile  of  the  ob- 
sourest  citizen,  than  he  was  taken  in  the  act  and  called  to 
account.  The  smallest  liberty  was  no  sooner  menaced 
than  it  found  defenders.  An  arbitrary  act  was  hardly 
committed  by  the  government  than  it  was  denounced  by  the 
Opposition.  A  patriotic  deed,  a  liberal  sacrifice  was  scarce- 
ly known,  than  it  was  crowned  by  popular  applause.  All 
the  deputies  of  the  Left  were  one  in  thought,  in  doctrine,  in 
vote,  in  action.  It  was  the  golden  age  of  the  party,  the 
season  of  youth  and  hope  ! 

But  since  the  Revolution  of 'July  and  in  the  earlier  legis- 
latures, the  dynastic  Opposition  has  marched  divided  under 
discordant  chiefs.  It  knew  not  what  it  wanted  nor  whither 
it  was  going.  It  was  actuated  rather  by  dislikes  than  by 
hopes,  by  aversions  than  by  principles.  It  was  overrun  by 
the  extra-parliamentary  Opposition,  whose  brilliant  star 
arose  amid  the  mists  of  the  evening  to  guide  new  genera- 
tions to  other  shores.  Cramped  within  its  little  burgess 
circle,  it  reanimated,  it  recruited  itself  no  more  at  the  foun- 
tains of  popular  inspiration.  It  seemed  as  if  it  bore  upon 
its  brow  the  brand  of  its  original  sin,  of  that  atrocious  usur- 
pation which  it  perpetrated  in  1830  upon  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people,  and  that,  despondent,  repentant,  weary  of 
others  and  of  itself,  it  would  hide  from  all  eyes,  and  in  the 
depths  of  solitude,  its  sorrow  and  remorse. 


I 


204  U  E  V  U  L  (.'  T  I  O  N      OF      JULY. 

It  knew  not  even  to  what  degree  it  was  advancing 
towards  the  Centre,  of  which  the  Third  party  debarred  it  the 
way,  nor  where  it  halted  in  the  direction  of  the  extreme 
Left.  It  was  incapable  of  either  defining  its  position,  of 
counting  its  forces,  or  conducting  itself  or  getting  itself  con- 
ducted ;  it  knew  not  where  to  plant  its  standard,  nor  under 
what  banner  to  rank  itself;  nor  what  was  the  password, 
nor  when  the  day  of  battle,  nor  for  what  cause  to  fight,  nor 
who  was  to  be  commander.  Had  it  two  leaders  ?  Had  it 
only  one  ?  Was  this  Odillon-Barrot  ?  Was  it  Maguin  ? 
If  Odillon-Barrot  desired  to  take  the  command,  Maguin 
spited,  like  another  Achilles,  pouted  in  his  tent,  abandoning 
the  Greeks  to  the  darts  of  Hector  and  the  wrath  of  the  gods. 
No  consultation,  no  combination,  no  plan,  no  system. 
Odillon-Barrot  was  too  absorbed  in  his  political  reveries  to 
discipline  his  troops.  Maguin  was  too  venturesome  for  them 
to  confide  themselves  to  the  caprices  of  his  schemes.  One 
was  too  absent-minded,  the  other  too  light-minded.  They 
were  not  content  to  be  soldiers,  they  were  not  qualified  to 
be  officers. 

The  dynastic  Opposition  was  accustomed  to  act  with  a 
sloth  of  movement,  a  circumspection  of  periphrases  and  a 
superabundance  of  academical  preliminaries,  which  is  quite 
antipathical  to  the  French  character.  You  were  constantly 
tempted  to  cry  to  these  orators  :  To  the  fact !  to  the  fact  ! 
come  at  last  to  the  fact ! 

It  never  attacked,  it  only  resisted.  It  dissertated,  but 
did  not  argue.  It  complimented  the  ministry  upon  its  good 
intentions,  while  it  was  transgressing  still  more  by  the 
intention  than  the  fact.  It  began  with  anger  to  end  with 
disgust.  It  stopped  short  in  the  middle  of  its  consequence, 
through  fear  of  the  principle.  It  would  not  say  of  a  bad 
■institution  that  it  was  bad,  but  that  it  was  badly  applied. 
It  would  have  a  monarchy  without  the  conditions  of  mon- 
archy, and  it  demanded  what  a  republic  alone  could  yield, 
while  strenuously  denying  that  it  had  the  least  desire 
of  a    republic.      The    strong    were    mortified    at   its   lack 


ODILLON-BARROT.  205 

of  energy  ;  the  weak,  themselves,  began  to  fear,  in  leaning 
upon  it,  that  it  would  sink  beneath  them.  Its  temporizing 
was  but  inertness,  its  moderation  but  pusillanimity. 

As  it  knew  not  itself  what  it  was  it  wanted,  the  patriots 
throughout  the  country  knew  not  what  it  ought  to  seek. 
Each  session  passed  away  in  hearing  speeches,  very  fine  to 
be  sure,  rather  inconclusive,  and  three  weeks  thereafter  to  be 
buried  in  oblivion.  Who  remembers  anything  of  them  ? 
and  what  did  they  say  ? 

You  have  seen  those  meagre  grasses  that  sprout  througji 
the  chinks  of  a  wall ;  it  is  well  that  they  be  a  little  agitated 
by  the  wind  to  strengthen  their  filaments.  So  with  the 
ministry ;  the  gentle  and  rustling  attacks  of  the  Opposition, 
instead  of  shaking  its  hold,  only  give  it  vigor  and  root. 

Another  reproach  to  be  made  the  dynastic  Opposition,  and 
this  is  the  gravest,  is  that  it  pays  too  little  attention  to  the  in- 
struction and  moralization  of  the  people.  Of  constitutional 
phraseology,  it  will  be  as  profuse,  in  the  Chamber,  as  you 
please ;  but  of  money  or  time  elsewhere,  not  an  hour  or  a 
stiver.  It  is  found  at  the  head  of  no  intellectual  establish- 
ment. It  directs  nothing,  centralizes  nothing,  vivifies  noth- 
ing. The  session  closed,  each  takes  flivrht  towards  the  stee- 
pie  of  his  locality,  re-enters  his  nest,  and  there  squats,  warm 
and  reposing,  until  the  season  of  parliamentary  storms. 

•I  have  asked  myself  often,  not  why  I  should  not  partici- 
pate the  opinions  of  Odillon-Barrot,  but  why  he  should  not 
be  of  mine.  If  I  had  Odillon-Barrot  in  a  corner  of  the 
confessional,  I  am  sure  that  between  his  ideas  and  mine  there 
would  not  be  the  breadth  of  a  hair.  But,  out  of  the  con- 
fessional, it  would  no  longer  be  the  same  thing.  Odillon- 
Barrot,  like  several  other  great  and  good  patriots,  commenced 
by  serving  the  government  of  the'7th  August,  which  since 
but  there  are  certain  precedents  which  explain  cer- 
tain managements,  and  which  force  a  man  into  situations  of 
inconsistence  from  which,  once  entered,  no  efforts  can  after 
extricate  him.  But  we,  who  have  had  the  good  fortune  not 
to  accept  the  fat  favors  and  employments  tliat  were  flung  at 

18 


206  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

our  head,  we  who  have  not  been  soiled  by  the  impure  touch 
of  the  ministry,  we  are  not  disposed,  for  our  part,  to  con- 
tinue this  comedy  of  fifteen  years.  We  are  aware  that 
people  say,  some  that  we  are  imprudent,  and  others. that  we 
are  dupes.  These,  that  we  are  ambitious — ambitious  of 
what  ?  Those,  that  we  are  utopists,  Carlists,  anarchists, 
agrarians,  and  whatever  you  please.  With  a  few  spots  and 
a  little  paint  on  both  cheeks,  we  might  win  the  good  graces 
of  the  electors  and  the  caresses  of  power.  But  we  should 
play  an  unworthy  part,  a  part  we  certainly  will  not  play. 
We  are  perfectly  aware,  we  can  expect  but  to  be  despised, 
scoffed  at,  hrssed,  persecuted  for  our  love  to  liberty,  and  what 
is  worst  of  all,  to  be  mistaken  for  suspicious  patriots,  and 
misapprehended  by  the  ignorant.  But  there  is  such  a  power 
of  attraction  in  truth,  there  is  a  gratification  of  conscience 
so  noble  and  so  pure  in  defending  the  popular  cause,  that 
the  greatest  sacrifices,  were  they  needed,  would  appear  to 
us  light  indeed,  and  all  the  joys  of  the  world  have  nothing 
comparable  to  this ! 

The  difference  between  Odillon-Barrot  and  us,  is  this : 
that  we  insist  upon  the  consequences  of  our  principle, 
whereas  he  renounces  the  principle  of  his  consequences. 
Another  difference  is,  that  he  does  not  wish  our  co-operation, 
and  that  we,  on  the  contrary,  are  desirous  of  his.  We  de- 
sire it  in  order  at  least  to  see  resolved  this  insoluble  problem 
of  a  monarchy  dancing  upon  a  slack-rope  without  the  aid 
of  a  balancer.  It  is  a  regret,  a  heartfelt  regret,  to  me  espe* 
cially  who  esteem  and  love  him,  as  he  well  knows,  these 
twenty  years  back,  not  to  be  able  to  be  on  his  side,  and  to 
see  myself  obliged,  perhaps  some  day,  to  be  opposed  to  him  ; 
a  circumstance  which,  while,  through  patriotism,  I  desire  his 
accession  to  power,  would  lead  me,  through  affection,  to  dep- 
recate it.  I  honor  Odillon-Barrot,  but  I  pity  him.  I  pity 
and  blame  him.  For  he  is  not,  like  me,  and  like  so  many 
others,  master  of  his  political  individuality.  He  is  more 
than  a  person,  he  is  at  present,  in  the  Chamber  and  the  na- 
tion, the  head  of  a  collective  opinion,  the  representative  of 


ODILLON-BARROT.  20J, 

the  liberal  burgess  class,  the  avowe.d  and  incontestable  leader 
of  a  numerous  and  powerful  party.  Odillon-Barrot  leads 
to  combat  the  most  numerous  phalanx  of  the  Chamber. 
They  are  but  chance  soldiers,  conscript  aggresrations,  bat- 
talions of  accident,  officers  without  troops,  scouts,  guerillas, 
adventurers  and  mercenaries.  But  by  dint  of  enjoining  his 
people  to  be  very  reasonable,  very  wise,  not  to  furbish  their 
arms,  not  to  make  too  much  noise,  to  wait,  to  wait  always, 
Odillon-Barrot  has  rendered  them  cautious,  lago-ard  and 
almost  timorous.  So  well  has  he  clipped  the  wings  of  the 
dynastic  Opposition,  for  fear  apparently  of  its  escape,  that  it 
can  no  longer  either  fly  or  walk.  In  place  of  returning  its 
adversary  dart  for  dart,  it  contents  itself  quite  christianly 
with  stanchino;  the  blood  and  bindino;  the  wound.  Instead 
of  flowing  always  in  the  same  channel  and  retaining  the 
same  name,  it  has  mingled  with  other  rivers  sprung  from 
other  sources,  so  that  we  can  no  more  recognize  either  its 
course  or  its  waters.  It  has  ceased  to  have  any  proper  and 
distinct  personality.  It  goes  and  comes  like  a  floating  body 
from  one  bank  to  the  other.  It  explodes  and  dissipates  its 
force.  It  extends  and  coils  itself.  It  has  no  limits,  because 
it  has  no  domain,  and  that  it  transfers  its  territory  and  stand- 
ard wheresoever  the  caprice  of  the  winds  may  carry  and 
keep  it.  It  is  the  ally  of  all  who  ask  it,  but  under  the  odd 
condition  of  never  profiting  by  the  victory.  It  lends  to 
whoever  would  borrow,  but  at  the  interest  of  never  repay- 
ing. It  gives  but  never  receives.  It  chains  itself  to  parties 
without  exacting  the  least  reciprocity  of  tie.  It  assumes  all 
the  duties,  without  claiming  the  rights,  all  the  charges  with- 
out enjoying  the  benefits.  It  fears  its  enemies  to  the  degree 
of  not  darins:  to  look  them  in  the  face.  It  is  afraid  of  itself, 
to  the  decree  of  not  venturinjr  to  count  its  numbers.  It 
takes  its  illusions  for  sentiments,  and  its  sentiments  for  max- 
ims. It  is  polite  and  courteous,  but  it  is  a  dupe.  It  is  hon- 
est, disinterested,  virtuous,  eloquent,  but  it  is  not  capable. 
It  does  the  business  of  the  government,  but  not  that  of 
France.     Would  it  not  be  better  to  leave  the  sewers  of  cor- 


208  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 


4> 


ruptioo  to  disgorge  themselves,  without  wallowing  in  their 
mire,  to  repudiate  adulterous  and  disreputable  connections, 
to  press  around  the  flag  of  liberty,  and  fight  to  the  last  drop 
of  blood  for  the  eternal  truth  of  principle,  and  say  with 
Francis  First,  on  delivering  up  his  sword  :  "  All  is  lost  ex- 
cept honor  !" 

But  it  is  that  the  dynastic  Opposition  is  not  reduced  to 
this,  and  that  it  has  lost  nothing,  neither  honor  nor  the  rest. 

I  insist,  because  this  anomaly  is  the  trait  the  most  charac- 
teristic of  the  physiognomy  of  Odillon-Barrot ;  never  has 
there  been  witnessed  so  much  force  and  so  much  feebleness, 
so  many  engagements,  with  so  large  a  troop  and  so  few  vic- 
tories, so  much. speech-making  and  so  little  action,  so  much 
noise  and  so  little  wool.  What  or  who  is  to  blame?  Fa- 
tality, the  fault  of  the  principle,  the  want  of  skill,  the  color 
of  the  banner,  the  soldiers  or  the  general  ?  What  better  is 
needed,  however,  and  when  to  be  expected  ?  I  do  not  fear 
exaggerating  when  I  say  that  at  the  moment  I  write,  Odillon- 
Barrot,  with  the  elections  free,  would,  if  he  wished,  be  made 
a  candidate  in  two  hundred  of  the  electoral  colleges.  So 
completely  is  he  the  expression,  the  formula,  the  true  truth 
of  the  burgess  monopoly.  Situation  without  example  in  our 
annals,  fortune  unheard  of  and  which  seems  to  have  befallen 
him  asleep !  but  also  responsibility  far  greater  than  that  of 
any  minister,  and  of  which  he  will  one  day  owe  an  account 
to  his  country.  Does  he  not  already  hear  electoral  France 
cry  :  "  Varus,  give  me  back  my  legions  V' 

It  is  however  a  pity  !  What  a  fine  and  valiant  band  you 
had  to  lead,  and  whither  would  they  not  have  carried  you, 
Varus,  had  you  known  to  avoid  the  defiles  and  gorges  of 
Germany  !  What  soldiers  !  But  since  they  are  defiling 
before  me,  why  may  1  not  runningly  sketch  their  roll  ? 

It  was  you,  first,  M.  Dufatjre,  terror  of  the  Doctrinarians, 
minister  dead  and  laid  out  at  your  full  length  in  the  sweat  and 
dust  of  the  29th  October,  who  would  be  very  glad  of  a  res- 
urrection  before  the  final  judgment,  and  who  had  commenced 
your  career  as  aide-de-camp  of  Odillon-Barrot.     You  con- 


ODILLON-BARROT.  209* 

veyed,  the  day  of  battle,  the  order  of  your  general,  and 
caracoled  about  the  wings  of  the  dynastic  Opposition.  You 
supported  the  harassed  troops  and  covered  their  retreat.  You 
were  colonel  of  the  heavy  cavalry.  Your  weapon  was  ar- 
gument, and  you  excelled  in  its  management.  You  mastered 
the  questions  of  law.  You  took  them  on  every  side.  You 
divided,  dissected,  unfolded  them  in  some  sort,  and  laid  bare 
their  inmost  recesses. 

You  came  next,  M.  Ducos,  w^ith  eyes  full  of  fire,  and  as- 
pect pale  and  contemplative.  M.  Ducos  has  something  of  the 
Girondist  in  the  pomp  and  brilliance  of  his  language.  He 
makes  his  heart  discourse  with  a  religious  abundance,  and 
the  sacred  words  of  country,  of  conscience,  of  virtue  flow 
unctuously  from  his  lips.  I  fear  there  is  more  imagination 
and  tenderness  of  soul  in  his  talent  than  of  logic.  M.  Ducos 
has  something  candid  in  his  manner  which  touches  and 
pleases.     He  has  the  heart  and  the  voice  of  an  orator. 

At  the  time  of  the  famous  discussion  respecting  "the  con- 
temptible affair  of  the  American  claims,  M.  Ducos  had  the 
sagacity  to  see  what  it  was  to  enter  upon  a  false  route.  As 
he  made  use  of  terms  mysterious,  covert,  inexplicable  in  ap- 
pearance, to  say,  rather  not  to  say,  what  had  become  of  the 
funds,  M.  Guizot,  ferule  in  hand,  rushed  to  the  tribune,  and  in 
the  tone  of  a  master  who  orders  up  a  scholar,  summoned  M. 
Ducos  to  explain  his  hieroglyphics.  Ducos  stammered,  and 
it  was  amusing  to  see  the  doctrinarian  hold  M.  Ducos  in  his 
clutches  like  a  poor  bird,  and  refuse  to  let  him  go  without  a 
formal  retraction  of  what  he  had  said  or  not  said.  There 
was,  in  truth  no  need  of  getting  into  such  a  rage.  No  one 
has  ever  pretended  that  M.  Guizot  had  pilfered,  stolen, 
trafficked,  sold,  discounted,  embezzled  the  American  debt. 
Ah  !  my  God,  M.  Guizot,  you  well  know  that  the  allusion 
was  not  to  you.  You  do  not  gamble  stocks  in  the  dens  of 
brokerage.  You  are  not  the  person  who  ^ends  gold  in  bars 
to  the  banks  of  Enn;land  and  the  United  States.  You  are 
not  a  large  capitalist,  an  enormous  stockjobber.  You  know 
perfectly   well  that  these  debts,  though  nominally  in  the 

18* 


210  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

hands  of  American  owners,  had  not  the  less  really  and  foully 
fallen  into  hands  which  wo  dare  not  name  ;  which  make 
money  of  everything,  which  are  proverbial  for  rapacity,  and 
which  will,  one  day,  be  nailed  to  the  pillory  of  history.  You 
knew  all  this,  M.  Guizot,  quite  as  well  as  we.  Must  we 
then  write  you  the  names  with  the  finger  ?  Come,  come, 
only  have  the  will  and  you  will  soon  cease  to  be  ignorant  of 
what  everybody  knows. 

You  too,  were  you  not,  are  you  not  still,  one  of  the  troop, 
you  M.  IsAMBERT,  man  of  vast  erudition  in  all  law,  civil,  crim- 
inal, administrative,  diplomatic  and  commercial,  I  do  not  say 
ecclesiastical,  for  we  are  not  agreed  upon  the  matter  wherein 
I  had  the  honor  to  encounter  and  perhaps  discomfit  you. 
Conscientious  man,  whence  your  eloquence,  when  occasion- 
ally you  are  so  1     Why,  from  your  heart.    Rifler  of  records, 
of  secret  documents  and  unofficial  treatises,  where  do  you 
unearth  all  these  things  ?    Why,  where  your  science  and  your 
ardor  guide  you,  where  others  do  not  think  of  going,  do  not 
know  how  to  study,  to   explore,  to   plunder.     M.  Isambert 
shakes  off  the  dust  from  mouldy  archives  and  old  books.     He 
analyzes,  extracts,  deciphers  manuscripts.     He  collates  the 
editions,  compares  the  passages,  and  confronts  curiously  the 
dates.    He  amalgamates  afterwards  the  whole  in  an  exposition 
substantiated  and  sustained  by  facts,  calculations  and  author- 
ities.    He  has  none  of  those  theories  which  fall  in  beautiful 
cadence  and  flatter  agreeably  the  ear,  like  the  windy  rhetori- 
cians of  the  Socialist  party.     He  reasons  upon  documents 
and  figures ;   for  the  ministers  who  laugh  at  your  theories, 
cannot  dispose  quite  so  cavalierly  of  facts.     If  the  facts  are 
not  true,  they  deny  them  ;  if  they  are  true,  they  deny  them 
'  still.     But  M.  Isambert  displays  before  their  eyes  the  texts, 
and  if  they  are  unwilling  to  read  them  themselves,  he  reads 
them.     M.  Isambert  dismays  and  torments  them.     Poor  fel- 
lows !  What  is  it  They  have  done  to  merit  such  treatment  ? 

He,  with  hair  prematurely  gray  and  countenance  so  pale, 
whom  death  has  surprised  in  a  dilemma,  it  was  Nicod  ;  a 
powerful  dialectitian,  an  intellect  comprehensive  and  vigor- 


ODILLON-BARROT.  211 

ous,  who  approached  his  subject  v/ithout  indecision  and  dis- 
patched it  without  fatigue.  The  thoughts  of  Nicod  flowed 
vivid  and  copious.  His  strength  had  nothing  too  strained 
or  too  salient.  A  democrat  from  conviction,  independent  in 
spite  of  his  amovability,  passionate  but  in  the  cause  of  jus- 
tice. When  he  got  animated  and  indignant  at  the  violation 
of  a  principle,  he  found  eloquence  in  defending  but  right, 
and  seekins^  but  truth. 

There  goes  Bignon,  whom  relentless  death  has  already 
wrapped  in  his  shadow  ;  Bignon,  a  clever  writer,  an  inge- 
nious and  learned  speaker,-a  lover  of  our  nationality,  but 
moderate  to  timidity.  There  are  who  betray  their  trust  by 
abuse  of  speech  ;  there  are  who  betray  it  by  abuse  of  si- 
lence. For  a  long  time,  people  asked  why  Bignon,  the  first 
diplomatist  of  the  Chamber,  never  spoke  upon  foreign  af- 
fairs. Were  we  then  become  anew  the  conquerors  of  Eu- 
rope ?  Bignon  was  not  so  proud  as  this  !  He  had  the  honor 
to  be  deputy,  the  first  honor  of  the  country,  and  he  suffered 
himself  to  be  travestied  a  peer  of  France.  Oh  !  weakness 
of  old  age ! 

Pass,  pass  before  me  M.  Charamaule,  dogged  jurisconsult, 
subtle  dialectian,  and  most  puzzling  of  cross-questioners. 
You,  M.  Charlemagne,  so  precise  and  so  penetrating.  You, 
M.  Dubois,  doctrinal  rather  than  doctrinarian,  profound  and 
solid  metaphysician,  warm  and  radiant  writer !  You  con- 
ceive with  fruitfulness,  but  bring  forth  with  pain.  When 
your  thoughts  and  sentiments  flow  over,  you  are  unable  to 
contain  them.  They  seem  to  inundate  you,  to  take  you  by 
the  throat  and  stifle  you.  You  would  unbosom  yourself  of 
them  all  at  once,  but  your  imperfect  expression  fails  you. 
You  seek  them  as  they  escape  you,  you  disconcert  yourself, 
you  get  embarrassed,  you  interrupt  yourself,  and  strike,  as 
if  to  recall  them,  with  reiterated  blows  the  resounding  man- 
tel of  the  tribune.  There  are  some  orators  whom  their 
words  suffocate  ;   with  iM.  Dubois,  it  is  the  ideas.  • 

You,  M.  Havin,  keen  and  piquant  observer,  who  can 
touch  with  address  the  most  delicate  subjects,  and  tell  the 


212  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

ministers,  with  a  smile,  some  good  truths  which  do  not  make 
them  smile.  Officer  in  v/aiting  of  Odillon-Barrot,  is  it  not 
you?  Oh  !  yes,  it  is  surely  you  who  narrated  the  banquet 
of  Thorigny  with  a  wealth  of  description  and  a  party  adroit- 
ness for  which  I  have,  I  think,  already  made  you  my  com- 
pliments. 

You,  M.  Pages,  disciple  and  brilliant  successor  of  Benja- 
min Constant.  Less  versatile  perhaps,  less  broken  to  the 
language  of  business,  not  possessing  the  skill  of  your  mas- 
ter, to  entwine  himself  serpent-wise  around  a  thesis,  and 
clasp  it  in  the  thousand  coils  of  his  crushing  argumentation. 
Less  dialectical,  less  copious,  less  natural  and  less  ingeni- 
ous ;  but  perhaps  more  able  ond  more  practised  in  the  art 
of  throwing  your  ideas  with  precision  into  axioms ;  more 
sparkling  in  the  variety  of  your  antitheses,  more  religious 
in  your  political  morals,  more  chastened,  more  pure  in  the 
forms  of  your  expression,  and  the  only  deputy  whose  writ- 
ten discourses  can  captivate,  by  the  sustained  splendor  of 
style  and  thought,  the  attention  of  a  Chamber  distrait,  care- 
less, and  very  little  sensible  to  the  pains  taken  to  entertain 
it  with  eloquence. 

You,  M.  Roger,  of  financial  and  maritime  notoriety ; 
useful  and  honest  deputy,  who  filled  the  Chamber  with 
shudderings  of  horror,  while  you  painted  to  it  in  living 
colors,  the  tortures  of  imprisonment  beneath  the  lurid  and 
devouring  sky  of  Senegal. 

You,  M.  de  Sade,  conscientious  disserter,  who  recite  with 
a  surd  and  psab^odizing  voice  whole  discourses  learned  by 
rote  and  painfully-elaborated.  Well-instructed  publicist,  mod- 
erate Liberal,  and  one  of  the  honestest  men  of  the  Chamber. 

You,  M.  DE  Tracy,  universal  philanthropist,  champion  of 
humanity,  man  of  virtue  and  purity,  who  find  in  your  noble 
soul  the  loftiest  impulses  of  eloquence,  and  who  preferred  the 
palms  of  the  elective  deputation  to  the  burning  and  branding 
stia^mas  of  the  ministerial  peerage. 

You,  General  Bertrand,  energetic  and  true  patriot,  whose 
name  shall  neyer  perish  as  long  as  fidelity  to  misfortune 


O  D  I  LL  ON  -  B  A  RR  O  T.  213 

shall  be  honored  among  men,  and  as  long  as  the  rock  of 
Saint-Helena  shall  hold  its  place  amid  the  waves.  Unlimited 
freedom  of  the  press  !  was  his  exclamation  at  the  close  of 
each  of  his  speeches  ;  and  in  fact  this  is  the  bulwark  of  all 
representative  government.  If  the  friend  of  Napoleon  is  so 
liberal  as  this,  it  is  not  probable  that  Napoleon  was,  after 
all,  so  much  the  despot !  And  in  truth,  notwithstanding  the 
absolute  character  of  his  government,  there  were  more  ideas 
of  liberty  in  the  head  of  Napoleon,  than  in  that  of  all  the 
living  kings  of  Europe  at  the  present  day. 

You,  M.  Chapays  de  Montaville,  who  is  it  has  advised 
you,  I  know  not  wherefore,  to  paint  me  on  foot,  with  a  pur- 
ple cloak,  the  cut  of  an  artist  and  other  fancy  decorations, 
which  do  much  more  honor  to  your  imagination  than  your 
judgment.  For  me,  I  will  not  draw  even  your  oratorical 
sketch  ;  I  am  unwilling  that  it  should  be  said  :  "  Ah  !  Ti- 
mon,  Timon,  you  praise  those  who  praise  you,  and  you  too," 
then,  have  your  confederates  of  adulation  !" 

You,  M.  Chambolle,  pupil  of  Carrel,  indefatigable  ath- 
lete of  the  press,  who  multiply  by  your  able  and  elegant 
pen,  the  friends  of  liberty,  and  who  never  leave  un whipped 
either  an  apostasy  of  party  or  a  treachery  of  principle. 

You,  M.  Salverte,  exemplary  man,  austere  philanthro- 
pist, courageous  citizen,  erudite  scholar.  Exact  to  your 
post,  you  are  the  first  to  enter  and  the  last  to  quit  the  Cham- 
ber. Riveted  to  your  bench,  you  follow  continually  with 
the  keen  eyes  of  intelligence,  the  most  dry  and  difficult 
discussions.  Not  a  law  of  any  importance  found  you 
mute,  not  a  ministerial  villainy  escaped  your  penetration, 
not  a  thesis  of  political  economy  whereupon  you  did  not 
pour  floods  of  light  from  your  pregnant,  practised  and  sa-  . 
gacious  intellect.  Whatever  may  be,  even  after  death,  the 
recklessness  and  injustice  of  parties,  they  cannot  deprive 
you  of  your  name  of  model-deputy. 

And  you  too,  I  must  not  forget  you,  J\I.  Billaut,  elegant 
and  fluent  orator,  jurist  and  administrator,  dialectition  co- 
gent, nervous,  rapid,  incisive,  who  quitted  but  with  regret 


214  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

the  standard  of  Odillon-Barrot,  and  v/ho  would,  were  you 
pressed  to  it,  again  attach  yourself  to  his  fortunes. 

Such  are  \he  chiefs  of  the  brave,  intellectual  and  learned 
band  which  Odillon-Barrot  has  allowed  to  slip  like  water 
through  his  hands  !  At  last  a  few  passed  over  into  the 
ranks  of  the  Extreme  Left.  The  condotticri  of  the  party, 
seeing  that  they  were  not  occupied,  determined  to  make 
war  on  their  own  account.  They  passed,  arms  and  bag- 
gage, into  tlie  ministerial  camp.  The  others,  less  prompt, 
less  eager  for  the  spoils,  less  impatient  to  take  the  yoke  of 
servitude,  have  crossed  the  lines  and  hedges  of  the  dynastic 
Opposition,  and  spread,  on  marauding  excursions,  through 
the  vineyard  of  M.  Thiers  ;  but  after  they  have  slept  oiF 
the  wine  of  contraband,  they  will  return  perhaps  to  the 
homestead. 

Odillon-Barrot  has,  besides,  scarce  ever  had  any  trouble 
■  to  give  himself.  As  soon  as  he  commits  a  fault,  it  is  repair- 
ed. In  proportion  as  he  deserts  himself,  he  is  supported. 
According  as  he  occasions  a  void  in  his  ranks,  it  is  filled 
up.  Thus,  while  a  portion  of  his  adherents,  through  sheer 
neglect  on  his  part,  secede  from  Odillon-Barrot,  there 
formed,  there  gathered  upon  his  deserted  wings,  a  little  pha- 
lanx, aristocratic  in  origin,  expert  in  the  exercitations  of 
philosophy,  history  and  political  economy,  friendly  to  meas- 
ured but  limited  progress,  who  are  djsgusted  with  the  cor- 
ruption of  what  they  see,  with  the  sterility  of  what  they 
hear,  who  are  tired  of  the  desperate  strife  of  so  many  petty 
and  sordid  ambitions,  who  take  concern  in  the  amelioration 
of  the  condition  o-f  the  people,  and  who  would  strip  politics 
of  that  mass  of  misty  fictions  which  envelope  it,  and  would 
shed  over  it  some  rays  of  fresh  and  pure  light.  In  this  little 
band  of  officers,  march  in  ranks  unequal  but  close,  M.M.  de 
Tocqueville,  de  Sivry,  de  Terrebasse,  de  Labordc,  de  Ram- 
pon,  de  La  Sizcraime,  de  Chasseloup,  de  Lanjuinais,  de  Cor- 
celles,  de  Courbarel,  de  Grammont. 

Here  they  are  all  armed,  equipped  and  ready  to  mount ! 
They  wait  to  charge  but  a  sign  from  Odillon-Barrot.     But 


O  D  I  LL  0  N -B  AR  R  O  T.  215 

an  act  of  will  is  necessary,  and  can  Odillon-Barrot  perform 
it  ?  Is  he  after  all  made  only  to  subserve  the  purposes  of 
M.  Thiers  and  to  add  a  cipher  to  his  unity  ?  Does  he  not 
comprehend  that  the  parliamentary  Opposition  cannot  re- 
main, like  a  sort  of  Olympian  Jupiter  in  a  majestic  repose, 
gazing  with  indifference  as  they  pass  upon  tiie  things  of; 
heaven  and  earth  ?  Its  part  is  motion,  and  perpetual  motion. 
When  it  can,  like  the  Extreme  Left,  pick  up  but  principles, 
it  takes  the  principles.  When  it  can,  like  the  Left,  glean 
at  once  both  tiie  principles  and  the  facts  which  put  them  in 
action,  it  must  descend  from  theory  to  practice,  and  take  the 
government  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  Odillon-Barrot  has 
been  reproached  with  being  too  ambitions.  My  reproach 
would  be,  that  he  is  not  ambitious  enough.  He  loans  his 
funds  to  people  who  use  them  for  their  own  ends,  and  return 
him  neither  principal  nor  interest.  This  is  the  trade  of  a 
dupe. 

Poor  Chamber  and  poor  Country  !  public  opinion  is  fast 
evaporating  in  smoke,  and  progress  is  fallen  lame.  While 
the  parliament  is  at  a  halt,  the  Court  recedes  at  a  giant  page 
into  the  past.  The  Camarilla  is  spinning  us  days  of  shame 
and  servitude.     The  government  is  fallen  to  a  woman. 

During  this  time,  what  does  the  dynastic  Opposition  ? 
There  it  is  reclining  on  the  beach.  It  amuses  itself  by 
throwing  grains  of  sand  into  the  counter-revolutionary  tor- 
rent which  passes  and  carries  it  off. 


21G  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 


M.  DUPIN. 

The  chameleon  which  changes  color  even  under  the  ga. 
zer's  eye,  the  bird  that  makes  a  thousand  twirls  and  darts 
off  in  the  air,  the  disk  of  the  moon  which  slips  aside  from 
the  field  of  the  telescope,  the  skiff  that,  on  a  stormy  sea, 
mounts,  dives,  and  reappears  on  the  crest  of  the  billows,  a 
flitting  shadow,  a  startled  fly,  a  whirling  wheel,  a  gleam  of 
lightning,  a  vanishing  sound — all  these  comparisons  give 
but  an  imperfect  idea  of  the  rapidity  of  sensation  and  mobil- 
ity of  mind  of  M.  Dupin. 

How  shall  I  contrive  to  sketch  that  disparate  and  ever- 
varying  physiognomy  ?  by  what  means  can  I  seize  it,  and 
where  begin  ? 

I  tell  you  plainly,  M.  Dupin,  that  if  you  keep  constantly 
stirring  on  your  chair,  if  you  keep  turning  about  your  head 
every  moment,  and  do  not  sit  for  me  better  than  that,  I  mean 
to  break  my  pallet  and  fling  down  my  pencils !  You  wish 
that  I  make  you  a  likeness,  do  you  not  ?  Very  well,  be  so 
kind  then  as  to  let  me  examine  you  for.  a  few  minutes 
merely.  Also,  do  not  set  to  scolding  me  if  the  proportions 
of  your  face  are  not  always  in  accord,  and  some  of  the  fea- 
tures be  distorted.  I  am  a  painter,  and  to  imitate  nature,  I 
must  make  the  portrait  conformable  to  the  model. 

There  are  in  M.  Dupin  two,  three,  four  men ;  nay,  an 
infinity  of  different  characters.  There  is  the  man  of  Sairit- 
Acheul  and  the  man  of  France,  the  man  of  the  Tuileries 
and  the  man  of  the  shop-keepers,  the  man  of  courage  and  the 
man  of  fear,  the  man  of  prodigality  and  the  man  of  economy, 
the  man  of  the  exordium  and  the  man  of  the  peroration,  the 
man  who  wishes  and  the  man  who  does  not, -the  man  of  the 
past  and  the  man  of  the  present — never  the  man  of  the  fu- 
ture. 


M.     DUPIN.  217 

M.  Dupin  is  an  author,  a  lawyer,  a  magistrate,  a  presi- 
dent, an  orator  and  a  wit.* 

M.  Dupin  has  written  a  good  deal,  some  even  in  Latin — 
in  bad  Latin,  to  be  sure,  but  it  is  still  Latin — which  he  has 
learned  late,  almost  without  a  teacher,  and  with  a  rare  force 
of  intellio-ence.  He  has  written  a  multitude  of  elementary 
treatises  upon  law,  good  as  well  as  bad,  which  might  bo 
strung  one  after  another  like  beads,  and  which  compose  his 
entire  bajjgao-e  as  author. 

Co     o 

These  little  tracts  are  scarce  more  than  compilations  of 
familiar  legal  science,  brief,  concise,  judicious,  but  without 
originality. 

M.  Dupin  is  not  endowed  with  that  faculty  of  patient  and 
close  investigation  which  digs  into  a  subject  and  goes  deeply 
down  into  the  spring-heads  of  principles.  Near  objects  he 
sees  justly  and  quickly  ;  he  does  not  see  far  and  long.  He 
has  the  philosophy  of  experience,  he  has  not  the  philosophy 
of  reflection.  He  cannot  create,  he  only  arranges.  He 
throws  off  a  manual  as  he  draws  up  a  declaration  ;  he  could 
not  compose  a  book. 

As  advocate,  his  manner  was  lively,  sarcastic,  rough, 
jerking,  able  but  without  method,  forcible  but  without  grace. 
He  carried  to  superstition  his  respect  for  the  gown  and  wigj 
of  the  old  parliament.  He  was  a  great  stickler  for  what  ho 
called  the  prerogatives  of  his  order,  and  you  might  have 
seen  him  ready  to  devote  himself,  to  die  if  necessary,  in  de- 
fence of  his  gown  and  rabato — a  thing  which  is  assuredly 
quite  heroic.  He  ransacked  Justinian  to  find  apothegms, 
history  to  amass  citations,  and  the  ancient  authors  to  extract 
quaint  sayings,  and  he  mixed  up  the  whole  with  some  pleas- 
antries of  his  own  fabric,  which  made  it  a  seasoning  rather 
piquant  and  singular.  Blunt,  impetuous,  unequal,  desul- 
tory, a  stringer  of  anecdotes,  prodigal  of  witticisms,  he  was 
the  amusement  of  the  auditory,  the  bar,  the  judges  and  the 
clients. 

As  attorney-general  of  the  gravest  court  of  France,  M*. 

♦  Diseur  de  bons-mots. 
19 


218  REVOLUTKJN      OF     JULY. 

Dupin  has  retained  of  his  professional  talent  but  the  serious 
and  solid  side.  He  does  not  possess  the  vast  erudition  of  Mer- 
lin, neither  the  treasures  of  his  jurisprudence,  nor  his  free 
and  rather  subtile  argumentation.  But  he  has  strong  sense, 
a  sure  judgment,  and  his  written  pleadings  are  models  of 
perspicuity,  precision  and  logic.  He  is  the  lawyer  rather 
than  the  legislator,  a  lover  of  the  text  rather  than  of  the 
spirit.  If  there  be  two  interpretations,  the  one  philosophi- 
cal, the  other  vulgar,  it  is  the  vulgar  that,  by  instinct,  he 
will  adopt.  He  has  much  sense  and  little  genius.  Spirit- 
less, inconsistent,  and  almost  cowardly  in  political  causes  j 
but  in  civil  cases,  firm,  progressive,  candid  and  dignified. 

As  President  of  the  Chamber,  M.  Dupin  has  great  merits 
and  great  defects.  He  is  versed  in  the  precedents  and  the 
law,  he  applies  with  sagacity  the  rules  of  the  House,  and 
maintains  the  parliamentary  prerogatives  against  the  en- 
croachments of  the  ministry.  Standing  up,  his  eyes  go  the 
rounds  of  every  point  of  the  hall.  He  domineers,  like  a 
pedagogue,  the  noisy  and  intractable  deputies,  and  deals 
them,  from  time  to  time,  on  the  fingers,  some  smart  slaps  of 
the  rule. 

He  is  not  to  be  surpassed  at  unravelling  the  tangled  thread 
of  our  legislative  oratory.  If  a  question  happens  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  confused  and  embarrassed  speakers  who  hud- 
dle amendments  upon  amendments,  distinctions  upon  dis- 
tinctions, and  who,  unable  longer  to  comprehend  it,  drop  it 
there,  M.  Dupin  picks  it  up,  wipes  it  clean,  and  winds  it 
upon  his  fingers.  He  restores  it  its  meaning,  its  policy,  its 
divisions,  its  principle  and  its  consequences.  He  is  admi- 
rable at  resuming  the  debates,  and  exposes  with  so  much 
neatness  the  logical  order  of  the  deliberation,  that  the  least 
intelligent  recognize  it,  and  cry :  "  That's  it !" 

Should  some  luckless  deputy  approach  him  too  close,  he 
rolls  himself  up  like  a  hedge-hog,  and  the  ministers  them- 
selves do  not  venture  to  meddle  with  his  prickles.  If  some 
oratorical  novice  makes  his  debut  while  members  are  talk- 
ing, and  turns  to  the  chair  to  claim  silence,  M.  Dupin  flings 


1 


M.     DUPIN.  219 

at  him,  as  the  only  answer,  a  withering  sarcasm  which  stuns 
the  poor  man  and  kills  him  off.  Not  that  M.  Dupin  is  nat- 
urally malicious,  but  he  forgets  sometimes  that  he  is  presid- 
ing, and  when  a  bon-mot  itches  him,  he  cannot  resist  the 
temptation  to  scratch. 

There  are  still  two  characters  to  be  painted  in  M.  Dupin 
— the  politician  and  the  orator. 

M.  Dupin  is  the  most  expressive  and  exact  personification 
of  the  burgess,  not  the  elegant  and  polished  burgess  of  the 
Chaussee-d'Antin  who  apes  the  gentleman,  not  the  petty 
burgess  who  wears  linen  lace  and  sells  it ;  but  the  burgess 
annuitant,  the  burgess  functionary,  the  burgess  proprietor, 
the  burgess  advocate,  the  burgess  merchant,  the  big  burgess 
who  has  no  great  relish  for  men  of  birth,  and  who  turns 
up  his  nose  at  the  laborer.  To  live  every  one  for  himself 
and  every  one  within  himself  these  are  his  favorite  maxims 
of  domestic-  philanthropy  and  of  foreign  policy.  Become 
afterwards  what  may  of  the  people ! 

He  has  the  plebeian  instinct,  but  not  the  revolutionary  in- 
stinct. He  has  been  Legitimist  after  having  been  Imperi- 
alist. He  is  now  Philippist,  and  to-morrow  would  be  repub- 
lican, without  great  concern  about  the  change.  But,  for 
that  matter,  has  not  the  burgess  class  he  represents  been  by 
turns  all  this,  and  would  it  not  be  so  again  ? 

M.  Dupin  is  going  to  speak  :  will  he  be  to-day  for  the 
people,  or  for  the  government  ?  he  has  to  choose.  For  both 
at  once,  is  still  belter,  or  for  one  after  the  other,  before,  be- 
hind, as  you  please,  and  this  without  the  smallest  embarrass- 
ment in  the  world.  He  has  always  three  or  four  inclina- 
tions to  start  from  three  or  four  different  points,  and  ordina- 
rily he  rushes  across  the  first  current  without  knowing  and 
without  caring,  for  that  matter,  by  what  means  he  is  to  gain 
the  opposite  shore  :  plank,  corks,  cordage,  sail  or  steam,  any- 
thino;  will  answer  him.     He  commits  himself  to  his  star. 

Sometimes  he  has  fits  of  stronger  good  sense  than  we  often 
find  in  a  Frenchman.  He  will  kindle  all  of  a  sudden  into 
indignation  at  some  violation  of  the  law,  some  waste  of  pub- 


220  REVOLUTION      OP     JULY. 

lie  money,  or  some  grave  and  solemn  insult  to  the  national 
honor.  His  probity  shrinks,  his  patriotism  warms  and  boils 
up.  He  stamps  in  his  seat.  He  pulls  his  hat  over  his  eyes. 
He  draws  his  brave  blade  from  the  scabbard,  and  brandish- 
ing it  with  both  hands,  is  going  to  demolish  all  before  him ! 
But  a  Court  breeze  passes  during  the  night  over  that  patriotic 
and  triumphant  brow,  and  he  yields  to  its  whispering  im- 
pulse. The  lion,  become  lamb,  now  sheathes  his  claws,  and 
is  quietly  led  back  to  his  lair.  He  still  bleats  a  few  low 
murmurs,  and  then  lies  down  at  the  feet  of  his  master. 

It  ill  becomes  M.  Dupin  to  open  the  strings  of  the  national 
purse,  but  he  does  open  them.  He  engages  to  speak  against 
a  certain  side  and  he  will  speak,  but  for  it.  He  promises  to 
say,  at  once,  the  decisive  word,  and  he  will  finish  without 
ever  concluding.  He  swears  by  his  great  gods  he  would 
make  a  tempest,  and  the  zephyr  is  not  gentler  than  the  breath 
of  his  words ;  that  he  would  go  direct  to  the  law,  and  he 
rests  in  the  fact ;  that  he  would  treat  one  of  the  two  ques- 
tions, and  it  is  the  other ;  that  he  would  reason  soundly  on 
the  principal  thesis,  and  he  even  touches  but  upon  the  ac- 
cessory. At  sea,  the  flow  of  the  tide  occurs  not  till  twelve 
hours  after  the  ebb.  But  in  the  head  of  M.  Dupin,  the 
flowing  and  ebbing  toss  his  will,  to  and  fro,  within  the  space 
of  even  a  minute.  He  is  more  mobile  than  the  sea  in  a 
storm.  ^   / 

One  day  an  editor — it  was  not  mine — wrote  biographical 
sketches  of  all  the  deputies,  and  he  placed  and  classified 
them : — who  Ministerial,  who  belonging  to  the  Opposition, 
who  to  the  Left,  who  to  the  Right,  who  to  the  Centre,  who  to 
the  intermediate  shades  of  opinion.  But  when  he  came  to  the 
letter  D,  and  to  the  turn  of  M.  Dupin,  he  knew  not  what  to 
say  of  his  opinion,  nor  what  to  do  with  his  place,  and  was 
forced  to  omit  him.  Remark  to  the  praise  of  the  Chamber 
as  of  M.  Dupin,  that  the  latter  was  just  appointed,  almost 
unanimously.  President  of  the  Chamber,  and  avow,  reader, 
that  this  is  a  charming  trait  of  political  life. 

M.  Dupin  affects  still  the  obsolete  distinction  of  being 


M.     DUPIN.  221 

Gallican,  and  was  much  more  concerned,  in  drawing  up 
the  Charter,  to  combat  the  UUramontanists,  than  to  see  that 
the  very  principle  of  the  government  was  not  changed  com- 
pletely. The  Revolution  of  July  having  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  a  man  of  this  compass  of  mind,  how  would  you  expect 
it  to  turn  out  otherwise  than  it  has  done  ?  M.  Dupin  imag- 
ined that  the  people  fought,  beneath  a  burning  sun,  during 
three  days,  merely  to  encamp  his  master — Dupin's  master — 
on  the  throne,  and  him,  Dupin,  on  the  bench  of  the  Court 
of  Cassation.  Verily,  the  people  had  something  better 
to  do ! 

M.  Dupin  has  three  antipathies — the  office-seekers,  the 
aristocrats  and  the  military.  He  is  in  constant  fear  that  the 
spurs  of  these  last  will  tear  the  skirt  of  his  gown,  and  he 
keeps  a  tight  rein  in  the  Chamber  to  the  Military  party. 

He  is  a  man  of  some  courage  and  he  is  not.  He  showed 
courage  when  his  house  was  besieged  by  bands  of  ruffians, 
who  threatened  to  assassinate  him.  He  had  none  when  he 
refused  to  plead  before  the  Court  of  Cassation  and  the  Cham- 
ber, against  the  abominable  fortifications  of  the  city. 

He  is  neither  ambitious  nor  disinterested,  neither  without 
simplicity  nor  without  ostentation.  He  pursues  fortune 
ardently  if  she  resists  him,  and  if  she  offers  herself  he 
slights  her  favors. 

He  has  mind  as  much  as  possible  and  more,  and  he  makes 
little  account  of  it.  But  if  you  would  please  him,  assure 
him  that  he  has  great  constancy  in  his  opinions,  and  he  will 
believe  you. 

He  is  more  dreaded  at  the  Tuileries  than  liked ;  his  visits 
there  are  rather  tolerated  than  encouraged,  for  he  is  blunt 
in  his  manners  and  sarcastic  in  his  language.  He  is  a  sort 
of  peasant  of  the  Danube  in  a  court-dress.  Look  behind 
the  door  of  the  Salon  de  Diane,  and  you  will  see  the  hob- 
nailed shoes  he  left  there  on  coming  in. 

At  Court,  he  is  awkward  and  ill-mannered.  He  is  offen- 
sive, by  his  drolleries,  to  princely  susceptibilities.  The  ex- 
cursions of  his  volubility  importune  ;  but  he  is  allowed  to 

19* 


222  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

run  at  large,  because  it  is  known  that  he  will  return  to  the 
stall  and  let  himself  be  caught  easily  by  both  the  ears. 

M.  Dupin  is  the  most  rustic  of  courtiers,  and  the  most 
a  courtier  of  rustics.  Let  us  not  mistake  them,  the  cour- 
tiers of  this  species  are  not  the  least  manageable.  The 
outside  of  the  bark  is  rough  to  the  touch,  but  the  inside  is 
soft  and  smooth. 

M.  Dupin  entertains  for  his  king  all  the  affection  of  an 
attorney,  and  it  is  probable,  that,  in  the  intimacy  of  their  au- 
gust conferences,  his  king  is  better  pleased  to  converse  with 
him  upon  the  drawing  up  of  a  lease  than  about  the  genius 
of  the  ministers,  and  upon  the  arrangements  of  his  house- 
hold than  the  polity  of  the  Great  Turk. 

Twenty  times  M.  Dupin  has  been  on  the  point  of  laying 
hold  of  the  ministry.  It  has  even  been  thrust  into  his  hand, 
and  he  let  it  fall.  He  has  the  whims  and  humor  of  a  child. 
He  wishes,  and  he  does  not  wish.  He  cries  and  weeps.  He 
throws  his  arms  around  your  neck  with  a  sportive  and  con- 
fiding air,  and  then  in  an  instant  he  retires  to  a  corner  in  a 
fit  of  sullenness.  He  looks  sheepish,  and  if  you  go  near 
him,  he  scrapes  you. 

He  is  bold,  resolute,  a  fine  talker  in  the  green-room,  but 
as  soon  as  he  mounts  the  stage,  he  stumbles,  forgets  his 
part,  stammers,  pulls  his  wig  over  his  eyes,  and  acts  the 
mute. 

M.  Dupin  has  long  passed  for  being  the  leader  of  the 
Third-Party.  Of  the  Third-Party  !  what  in  the  name  of 
wonder,  was  this  Third-Party  ? 

It  is  known  that  after  the  death  of  Casimir-Perier,  the  tri- 
umphant majority  broke  down.  The  apostates  of  July,  the 
shameless  Legitimists,  the  sabre-wearers,  the  Court  valets, 
the  thorough-bred  Doctrinarians,  the  ambitious  functionaries, 
and  the  greedy  speculators  banded  together  apart  and  formed 
the  bulk  of  the  army. 

But  some  of  the  combatants  began  to  desert,  unwilling, 
through  shame  or  prudence,  to  enlist  under  the  ferule  of  the 
Doctrinarians.     They  beheld  dawning  in  the  future,  a  new 


M.     DUPIN.  223 

minister,  and  twenty  times  has  he  been  within  their  reach, 
and  they  have  once  even  grasped,  for  some  minutes,  the 
shadow  they  were  pursuing.  This  fraction  of  dissidents 
gave  itself  the  title  of  Third-Party.  What  did  it  do,  this 
party  ?  what  did  it  want  ?  had  it  officers  ?  had  it  soldiers, 
and  who  were  they  ?  It  is  said  that  seated  on  the  outskirts 
of  both  the  ministiy  and  the  Opposition,  they  leaned  some- 
times to  one  side,  sometimes  to  the  other.  But  they  con-  * 
cealed  themselves  so  well  that  you  might  have  worn  out 
your  eyes  to  discern  them,  and  they  passed  so  quickly  from 
one  principle  to  the  other,  that  it  was  impossible  to  define 
their  position.  They  did  not  betray  each  other,  because 
they  did  not  know  each  other.  They  did  not  count  their 
strength,  because  they  did  not  know  whom  they  were  com- 
posed of.  They  coveted  power,  but  dared  neither  to  take 
nor  to  keep  it.  They  were  ministers  for  three  days,  and 
after  this  they  were  nothing,  neither  ministerial  nor  Opposi- 
tion. No  one  could  say  whether  they  were  alive,  or  dying, 
or  dead.  They  had  not  strength  to  carry  a  resolution,  a 
measure,  a  principle,  and  all  their  fecundity  was  but  a  suc- 
cession of  abortions.  Sinsi-ular  folks !  whom  Providence 
had  very  probably  constituted,  like  ourselves,  of  flesh  and 
bone,  who  drank,  ate,  spoke  and  voted  like  the  rest  of  mor- 
tals,  and  with  whom  we  have  communed,  sat,  discussed  and 
legislated,  a  good  moiety  of  the  day,  during  whole  years, 
without  being  able  to  say  very  precisely  what  was  their 
name,  and  if  they  had  one,  nor  what  their  opinions,  or  if 
they  had  any. 

No  matter,  the  Third-Party  passes  for  having  existed  in 
the  days  of  fable,  and  M.  Dupin  for  having  been  its  valorous 
and  eloquent  chief. 

M.  Dupin  is  one  of  those  men  whom  it  is  unsafe  to  have 
for  political  friends,  and  undesirable  to  have  for  enemies. 
He  is  an  embarrassment  nearly  as  great  to  the  ministry  he 
does  not  favor,  as  to  that  which  he  should  support.  He  is 
not  supple,  conciliatory,  insinuating  enough  to  unravel  the 
thousand  difficulties  of  a  thousand  affairs.     His  mind   is 


224  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

wrought  into  a  hedging-bill  which  saws  more  than  it  cleaves. 
Were  he  minister,  he  would  defer  to  the  morrow  the  plan 
of  to-day,  and,  in  his  moments  of  good-humor,  would  skewer 
all  his  colleagues  on  the  point  of  his  witticisms. 

M.  Dupin  would  make  a  bad  figure  at  the  private  parties 
of  the  Court,  with  the  sword  dangling  at  his  side  and  the 
golden  eaglet  knotted  upon  his  left  shoulder,  and  he  would 
be  the  first  himself  to  admit  the  ridiculousness  of  his  figure 
mounted  Don- Quixote- wise,  mailed  all  over  in  feudal  armor, 
upon  the  poney  of  the  Apanage.  He  should  have  left 
these  heroical  exhibitions  to  the  knights  of  the  sorrowful 
countenance. 

The  flattery  of  others,  which  spoils  presidents  and  kings, 
has  also  spoiled  M.  Dupin,  who  has  not  a  little  contributed 
to  this  result  himself,  and  I  profoundly  pitied  him  when  he 
showed  himself  so  far  gone  as  to  tell  us,  in  a  fit  of  ludicrous 
vanity  :  "  Gentlemen,  you  may  believe  it  or  not  as  you  will, 
but  let  me  assure  you  that  I  am  the  Demosthenes  of  the 
Tribune,  the  Cicero  of  the  Bar,  and  the  elder  Cato  of  the 
fields."  No,  M.  Dupin,  we  do  not  believe  you ;  for  these 
three  proud  republicans  whom  you  pretend  to  imbody,  by 
yourself  alone,  would  not  have  stooped  to  wear  the  livery 
of  Louis-Philippe,  and  kiss  the  petticoat  hems  of  the  royal 
damsels.  There  is  nothing  in  common,  M.  Dupin  should 
know  it,  between  a  poor  little  court  sycophant  like  him,  and 
the  glorious  galaxies  of  Greece  and  of  Rome  ! 

Demosthenes,  after  having  devoted  to  the  infernal  deities 
Philip  of  Macedon,  died  by  the  dagger  of  an  assassin,  em- 
bracing as  he  expired  the  altars  of  liberty,  and  M.  Dupin, 
as  far  as  we  know,  has  no  wish  to  hurl  like  imprecations 
against  Philippe  of  Orleans,  nor  to  die  after  the  manner  of 
Demosthenes. 

Cicero  combated  in  the  Roman  Senate,  that  assembly  of 
kings,  the  knavish  and  plausible  Octavius  who  had  a  hand 
and  a  word  for  everybody  while  he  was  meditating  at  the 
same  time  the  subversion  of  the  republic,  and  M.  Dupin  has 
lent  himself  as  president  to  the  purposes  of  a  Chamber  of 


M.     DUPIN.  225 

speculators,  office-seekers,  attornies,  court-dependants,  and 
shop-keepers,  which  have  not  the  least  resemblance  to  an 
assembly  of  kmgs. 

In  fine,  Cato  the  elder  lived  on  black  broth  in  the  frugal- 
ity of  his  country  abode,  and  was  scarce  in  the  habit  of 
making  drafts  at  sight  upon  the  treasury  of  Rome,  while  M. 
Dupin  luxuriates  amid  flowers  and  wines,  by  the  light  of  a 
thousand  tapers,  in  his-  resplendent  festivities,  and  hoards 
besides  all  that  he  can  lay  hands  on  of  gold  or  paper  money, 
after  having  once  applauded  the  writer  of  this,  for  his  cour- 
age in  denouncing  the  abuse  of  hoarding. 

M.  Dupin  had  never  but  a  vulgar  and  easily-contented 
ambition.  If  he  has  aspired  to  no  more  than  being  Presi- 
dent of  the  Chamber,  attorney-general  of  the  Court  of  Cas- 
sation, and  great-cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  he  ought  to 
have  made  speeches  and  not  pamphlets.  If  he  desired  to  go 
down  to  posterity,  he  should  have  made  pamphlets  and  not 
speeches. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  however,  that  M.  Dupin,  for  not 
being  quite  as  eloquent  as  Cicero,  nor  as  logical  as  Demos- 
thenes, is  not  a  very  remarkable  extempore  speaker.  Doubt- 
less, his  elocution  lacks  the  skill  of  method,  the  elevation  of 
thought,  and  the  purity  of  form  of  that  of  Berryer ;  but  it 
is  perhaps  more  substantial,  more  animated,  and  more  pic- 
turesque. Examined  closely,  the  sallies  of  M.  Dupin  are 
somewhat  coarse,  but  at  a  distance  they  strike  by  their  natu- 
ralness and  their  very  rusticity.  He  draws  his  compari- 
sons from  common  things,  from  the  habits  of  living,  usages, 
manners,  law  terms  and  proverbial  modes  of  speaking,  and 
he  throws  his  auditory  into  fits  of  hearty  and  national 
laughter.  He  has  occasionally  the  eloquence  of  strong 
common  sense,  and  after  a  manner  entirely  new,  singular, 
original,  admirable. 

Quick,  passionate,  full  of  fire,  he  electrifies  an  assembly. 
He  does  not  let  it  breathe,  and  when  he  has  a  good  cause 
and  is  in  the  vein,  he  prosecutes  it  with  astonishing  vigor 
and  precision.     Then  all  his  ideas  are  connected,  all  his 


226  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

words  weigh,  all  his  proofs  are  deduced  in  regular  sequence. 
Then  is  he  solid,  cogent,  nervous,  concise  and  luminous. 
Then  M.  Dupin  is  comparable  to  the  most  rational  among 
our  dialectitians,  and  the  most  vehement  among  our  orators. 

Unfortunately,  M.  Dupin  is  often  unequal,  and  falls  into 
the  low  and  the  trivial.  His  imagination  overmasters  him. 
If  a  bon-mot  chance  to  cross  him  while  he  gesticulates  in 
the  tribune,  he  seizes  it  on  the  wing,  and  holding  it  by  the 
middle,  hurls  it  upon  the  Chamber  at  the  risk  of  hurting  the 
first  head  it  may  happen  to  encounter. 

He  has  more  manliness  in  his  speeches  than  his  princi- 
ples, more  power  of  argumentation  than  of  judgment,  and 
more  independence  of  head  than  of  heart.  He  has  passed 
through  so  many  political  events,  and  advocated  truth  and 
falsehood  in  so  many  and  different  causes,  that  it  is  not  easy 
to  say  whether  he  has  done  more  good  or  harm  to  the  interests 
of  liberty,  nor  also  more  harm  or  good  to  his  own. 

This  sort  of  orators — a  rare  kind  in  our  day  especially — 
are  men  of  impulse,  and  who  never  speak  better  than  when 
they  speak  at  a  moment's  notice.  They  flutter,  they  fret 
themselves  in  their  seat  and  take  fire  like  a  chemic  match. 

Do  you  see  that  inflammable  personage  who  enters  the 
hall  in  a  flurry?  He  sits,  he  rises,  he  fidgets  about,  he 
stretches  out  his  hand  to  claim  the  tribune,  he  mounts  it  and 
perorates.  Ask  him  not  what  was  his  object  in  commencing  ; 
ask  him  not,  above  all,  how  he  is  going  to  close.  Can  it  be 
that  you  would  be  surprised,  should  he  speak  for  the  meas- 
ure and  vote  against  it  ?  Don't  you  know  him  to  be  a  man 
who  gives  himself  up  to  the  current  of  his  inspirations,  with- 
out even  a  surmise  as  to  whither  they  transport  him  ?  He 
sets  out,  and  as  he  goes  along,  beats  the  bushes  for  argu- 
ments. 

Nevertheless — who  would  think  it — M.  Dupin  still  insists 
and  wishes,  against  wind  and  wave,  to  pass  for  a  man  of 
constancy,  of  great  constancy. 

Constant,  upon  what  ?  Constant,  to  whom  ?  can  he  say ; 
and  we  ourselves  ?     Alas  !  we  cannot  change  our  nature. 


M.     DUPIN.  227 

Feeble  and  fickle  mortals,  we  are  that  which  the  gods  have 
made  us.  Each  light  has  its  shadow,  each  quality  its  de- 
fect. If  M.  Dupin  had  not  his  mobility,  he  would  not  have 
his  talent.  Would  he  be  without  the  one,  or  the  other  ?  Be 
It  so,  but  let  him  choose  ! 

I  desire  in  closing,  reader,  to  acquaint  you  very  secretly 
with  an  embarrassment  of  mine,  and  to  ask  your  advice  ; 
stipulating,  above  all,  that  you  must  not  go  tell  this  to  M. 
Dupin.  You  are  to  know  then  that  the  honorable  legislator 
has  voted  at  the  Academy,  against  his  own  brother,  for  me, 
Timon,  your  unworthy  servant  and  his.  What  am  I  to  do, 
and  blockhead  that  I  am  !  can  it  be  a  matter  of  doubt  ? 
How,  for  the  whim  of  being  academician,  I  Timon  of  Athens, 
a  painter  without  talent,  but  a  man  of  sincerity,  how  should 
I  prove  delinquent  to  M.  Dupin,  to  you  reader,  to  myself,  in 
suppressing  the  truth  ? 

No,  reader,  I  rather  will  charitably  advise  M.  Dupin  not 
to  get  himself  bepraised  so  extravagantly,  in  the  flattering 
biographies  he  writes  of  himself,  or  that  he  dictates,  which 
is  pretty  much  the  same  thing. 

How  these  men  of  intellect  have  singular  ways  !  M.  Du- 
pin wishes  absolutely  to  be  something  different  from  him- 
self. It  is  his  settled  idea.  He  gazes  coquettishly  in  his 
mirror,  and  changing  countenance  in  proportion  as  he  looks — 
the  eflTect  apparently  of  inveterate  habit — he  just  now  says 
to  me :  "  It  is  not  I  whom  you  have  sketched,  I  am  not  M. 
Dupin  !" — How,  you  are  not  M.  Dupin  ?  Why,  I  assure 
you  it  is  you  and  no  other  who  sat  at  this  moment  for  the 
pencil  of  Timon.  It  is  you  I  see,  it  is  you  I  paint,  it  is  you, 
it  is  certainly  you  whom  I  have  just  portrayed  ! 

Come,  let  us  see  what  you  would  have  me  do  to  appease 
you  ?  Do  you  wish  me,  for  example,  to  say  that  other  ora- 
tors have  been  as  inconstant  as  you  ;  that  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  have  fluctuated,  neither  more  nor  less  than  you,  in 
their  sentiments  of  the  forum,  the  Senate  and  the  closet ; 
that  Voltaire,  Pascal,  Fenelon,  Rousseau  have  varied  their 
opinion  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects ;  in  fine,  and  this  will 


228  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

please  you  more,  that  there  are  to  be  found  certain  pam- 
phleteers— those  cursed  pamphleteers — who  are  said  to  have 
been  at  first  Tories,  afterwards  radicals  ;  at  first  Legitimists, 
then  quasi-republicans  ;  at  first  republicans,  then  Constitu- 
tionalists ;  at  first  liberals,  then  monarchists  ;  at  first  mon- 
archists, then  liberals  ?  Dead  or  living,  give  these  what 
name  you  please,  let  me  be  placed  with  them  in  a  common 
category  ;  do  not  consider  me,  act  your  will. 

But  you  will  understand,  M.  Dupin,  that,  to  gain  your 
good  graces,  I  cannot  forfeit  those  of  the  public,  and  spoil 
one  of  the  best  of  my  portraits.  After  all,  if  you  be  dissat- 
isfied, I  am  resolved,  if  I  am  not  academician  at  your  hands, 
to  be  so  at  my  own,  or  rather  at  yours,  kind  reader ;  an 
election  well  worth  the  otlier,  is  it  not  ? 

At  the  same  time,  I  feel  some  compunctions  of  pity — M. 
Dupin  will  say  it  is  remorse — and  I  should  like,  with  your 
permission,  reader,  to  console  this  poor  sufferer  and  shed  a 
little  balm  upon  his  Vvound.  I  should  like  to  say,  and  it  is 
but  justice  to  mention,  that  M.  Dupin  is  a  man  of  excellent 
moral  parts  ;  that  he  is  generous,  inoffensive,  not  vindictive, 
and  of  the  last  I  am  the  proof;  that  he  has  a  lively  sense 
of  justice  and  the  law ;  that  he  has  independence,  although 
a  little  stubborn  ;  that  he  is  sparing  of  the  public  money, 
except,  indeed,  towards  himself  and  his  master ;  that  he  is 
beneficent,  charitable,  and  naturally  friendly  to  the  people. 

May  I  add  to  the  picture  this  other  trait,  that  he  has  a 
foible  for  the  privileged  classes,  and  yet  does  not  love  privi- 
lege ;  that  he  has  a  foible  for  the  Court,  and  yet  he  does  not 
like  either  courts  or  courtiers. 

I  must,  in  fine,  repeat — and  upon  this  point  M.  Dupin  will 
not  think  my  recapitulation  too  long — that  he  is  full  of  fancy, 
sarcasm,  and  sprightliness  in  familiar  conversation,  subtle 
and  profound,  clear,  nervous  and  skilful  in  his  pleadings,  in- 
genious and  original  in  his  literary  productions. 

Still  a  word  to  complete  his  portrait. 

M.  Dupin's  voice  is  full,  grave,  clear,  modulated  at  the 
medium  pitch,  sometimes  powerful  and  thrilling.     His  face 


M.     BERRYER.  229 

is  scarred,  blotched,  mangled,  wrinkled.  But  when  his 
physiognomy  is  in  motion,  enlivened  by  passion,  wrought  up 
by  argumentation,  it  is  devoid  neither  of  elevation  nor  noble- 
ness. His  deep-set  eyes  sparkle  with  fire,  and  gleam  from 
the  depths  of  their  orbits  like  two  diamonds  ;  and  really,  I 
do  not  call  this  being  an  ugly  man.  , 

Note,  reader,  that  this  is  quite  fresh  from  the  pencil  and 
mere  appendix.  Will  M.  Dupin  be  satisfied  ?  he  ought  to 
be  certainly  ;  yet  you  will  see  that  he  will  not  unless  I  say 
that  he  is  consistent.     Well,  no,  I  will  not  say  it ! 


M.   BERRYER. 

It  is  just,  it  is  lawful  that  all  the  varieties  of  the  political 
opinion  of  the  country  should  be  represented  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies.  The  Chamber  derives  its  moral  authority  from 
the  illustrious  of  its  members ;  and  of  what  service  would 
be  to  the  minister  himself  an  incompetent  and  ridiculous 
legislature,  which  he  might  lead  in  his  train  amongst  the 
baggage  of  his  household. 

The  Legitimist  party  have  done  what  intelligent  minori- 
ties should  always  do :  it  has  supplied  the  number  by  the 
quality.  The  deputies  which  it  has  selected  are  men  of 
eloquence  and  probity.  They  are  dignified  in  deportment, 
prudent  in  conduct,  polished  and  measured  in  language,  and 
their  doctrines  are  never  urged  but  with  all  the  urbanity  of 
parliamentary  propriety. 

But  they  are  placed  in  a  false  position.  They  have  been 
sent  to  the  Chamber  by  their  party  to  hoist  there  the  white 
flag,  and  as  soon  as  they  display  the  smallest  glimpse  of  this 
flag,  the  universal  tempest  which  rises  and  rages  compels 
them  to  furl  it  with  all  speed.  They  have  therefore  to  place 
themselves  in  the  wake  of  the  Opposition,  to  tag  themselves 
to  its  coat-skirts,  to  imitate  its  language,  to  talk  like  it  of 

20 


280  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

liberty,  of  large  liberty ;  and  these  are  expressions  rather 
strange,  rather  new  upon  their  lips,  words  which  would  have 
passed  for  seditious  in  the  reign  of  Charles  X.,  and  which 
accord,  in  fact,  neither  with  the  principle  nor  with  the  acts 
of  his  government.  These  liberal  professions  are  distrusted, 
appearing  to  be  rather  a  stratagem  of  opposition  than  the 
expression  of  a  sincere  conversion.  It  is  feared  that  the 
Legitimists  would  soon  put  off  the  mask  if  Henry  V.  were 
to  return,  and  that  as  they  are  now  but  for  liberty,  they 
would  then  be  but  for  power. 

The  Legitimist  deputies  form,  in  the  Chamber,  a  separate 
band.  It  is  a  miniature  church,  having  its  invariable  dog- 
mas, and  where  they  chant  in  chorus  the  praises  of  their 
lord  and  master.  They  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  separated  from  their  country,  and  who  wept 
in  the  secrecy  of  the  tabernacle,  the  exile  of  their  God  and 
the  subversion  of  their  temple  and  their  holy  laws. 

At  their  head,  and  the  most  distinguished  of  all,  shines 
M.  Berryer. 

M.  Berryer  has  long  been  the  sole  orator  and  almost  the 
sole  deputy  of  his  party.  Not  that  there  is  not  in  the 
Chamber  a  certain  number  of  shameless  Legitimists  who 
group  themselves  high  in  the  centre,  and  who  would  not  fail 
to  turn  to  account  their  quasi-legitimacy,  were  Henry  V.  to 
appear,  the  white  flag  in  his  hand,  within  twenty-five  or 
thirty  miles  of  Paris.  But  these  disguised  Legitimists  re- 
veal but  at  the  ballot  their  secret  predilections,  and,  at  all 
other  times,  they  bind  so  well  the  mask  of  the  Juste-milUeu 
about  their  visage,  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  tear  it  ofFt 
If,  in  the  first  legislatures,  M.  Berryer,  carried  away  by  the 
heat  of  improvisation,  used  to  let  slip  some  regrets  a  little 
too  lively  for  the  absence  of  his  king,  these  renegade  Legiti- 
mists were  the  first  to  raise  a  murmur  of  displeasure.  But 
in  the  lobbies,  they  dropped  this  part,  and  if  they  met  M. 
Berryer  alone,  would  shake  him  by  the  shoulder,  squeeze 
discreetly  his  fingers,  and  say  :  "  Oh !  how  you  are  right, 
M.  Berryer !     Go  on  ;  we  are  at  your  side !     Who  would 


M.     BERRYER.  231 

not  sigh  for  those  excellent  princes  ?"  M.  Berryer  might 
admire  the  great  prudence  of  this  noble  conduct,  but  he 
must  have  desired  a  little  more  support  when  he  ascended 
the  tribune. 

Perhaps,  too,  that  sentiment  of  indulgence,  of  decency,  of 
generosity,  which,  especially  in  a  French  Chamber,  is  felt 
towards  a  courageous  champion  contending  alone  against  a 
battalion  of  adversaries,  has  proved  of  more  advantage  to  M. 
Berryer  than  could  have  been  the  adhesion  of  a  numerous 
party.  Perhaps  the  very  difficulty  of  this  extraordinary 
position  has  given  to  his  talent  additional  energy  and  lustre, 
as  the  jet  of  water  is  seen  to  issue  the  more  vigorously,  the 
narrower  the  tube  that  contains  it. 

Berryer  is,  after  Mirabeau,  the  greatest  of  the  French 
orators.  Yes,  not  one,  since  Mirabeau,  has  equalled  Berryer : 
neither  General  Foy,  who  used  to  recite,  rather  than  extem- 
porize, and  who  did  not  unite  the  close  reasoning  of  business 
to  the  powerful  voice  and  the  copious  eloquence  of  Berryer ; 
nor  Laine,  whose  sole  recommendation  was  a  harmonious  and 
pathetic  delivery ;  nor  de  Serre,  who,  heavy  and  involved 
in  his  exordiums,  gave  expression  but  at  rare  intervals  to  his 
oratorical  passion ;  nor  Casimir-Perier,  who  was  vehement 
only  at  an  apostrophe ;  nor  Benjamin  Constant,  who  had 
more  of  suppleness  and  art  than  of  grandeur  and  energy ; 
nor  Manuel,  in  fine,  who  was  endowed  with  a  sure  and  firm 
judgment,  but  who,  more  a  dialectitian  than  an  orator,  never 
wrung  like  Berryer  involuntary  bursts  of  applause  from 
the  charmed  and  enraptured  auditory. 

Nature  has  treated  Berryer  as  a  favorite.  His  stature  is 
not  tall,  but  his  handsome  and  expressive  countenance  paints 
and  reflects  every  emotion  of  his  soul.  There  is  a  fascination 
in  the  soft  gaze  of  his  full  and  finely-cut  eyes,  his  gesture  is 
marvellously  beautiful  like  his  delivery.  He  is  eloquent  in 
his  whole  person.  He  sways  the  assembly  with  the  bear- 
ing of  his  head.  He  throws  it  backward,  like  Mirabeau, 
an  attitude  which  gives  a  prepossessing  openness  and  can- 
dor to  the  aspect.     He  is  perfectly  at  ease  in  the  tribune, 


232  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

and  takes  possession  of  it  as  if  he  were  the  master,  I  had 
almost  said  the  despot.  His  breast  swells,  his  bust  dilates, 
his  stature  rises,  and  you  would  imagine  him  expanding  to 
the  dimensions  of  a  giant.  His  wrinkled  forehead  glows, 
and  when  his  head  is  vehemently  agitated,  a  strange  circum- 
stance !  the  blood  is  seen  to  ooze  from  the  pores  of  the  face. 

But  that  in  which  he  is  incomparable  and  beyond  all  the 
other  orators  of  the  Chamber,  is  the  tone  of  the  voice,  the 
first  of  beauties  in  the  actor  and  the  orator.  Men  in  assem- 
blages are  extremely  sensible  to  the  physical  qualities  of  the 
speaker  or  the  comedian.  Talma  and  Mademoiselle  Mars 
owed  their  fame  but  to  the  charm  of  their  voice.  Give  them 
a  common  voice,  and  whatever  might  have  been  the  profun- 
dity of  their  acting  and  the  exquisite  sentiment  of  their  art, 
they  had  lived  and  died  unknown.  It  is  by  the  vocal  pow- 
ers, frequently  more  than  by  the  arguments,  that  an  assem- 
bly is  moved. 

But  M.  Berryer's  pre-eminence  is  not  due  alone  to  the 
accident  of  his  external  qualities.  He  is  also  a  master  in 
the  oratorical  art.  Most  other  speakers  abandon  them.selves 
to  their  extempore  inspirations,  and,  in  the  disorder  of  their 
excursions,  they  fall  upon  some  fine  movements,  but  they  are 
destitute  of  method.  It  is  not  always  clear,  and  they  don't 
know  themselves,  where  they  start  from  and  whither  they 
would  go.  They  rest  themselves  on  the  route,  and  halt  to 
reconnoitre  the  way.  Berryer's  superiority  here  is,  that 
from  the  threshold  of  his  discourse,  he  sees  as  from  an  ele- 
vated ground,  the  goal  whereto  he  is  tending.  He  does  not 
precipitate  himself  upon  his  adversary.  He  begins  by 
drawing  around  him  several  lines  of  circumvallation.  He 
routs  him  from  post  to  post.  He  deceives  him  by  feigned 
marches.  He  approaches  him  gradually — he  pursues  him 
— he  surrounds  him — he  seizes  him — he  strangles  him  in 
the  concentric  coils  of  his  argumentation.  This  is  tlie 
method  of  capacious  intellects,  and  it  would  soon  fatigue 
an  audience  so  inattentive  as  a  French  Chamber,  if  M. 
Berryer  did  not  fix  its  levity  by  the  charm  of  his  voice,  the 


M  .      R  E  R  A  Y  E  R  .  233 

animation  of  liis  gesture,  and  the  noble  elegance  of  his  dic- 
tion. 

Mirabeau  became  himself  but  under  the  stimulus  of  con- 
tradiction and  obstacle.  His  element  was  in  governing  rebel- 
lions and  revolutions.  He  was  a  wrestler,  a  man  of  conten- 
tion.   He  was  never  so  grand  as  in  the  full  glow  of  the  battle. 

Mirabeau  was  besieged  with  murmuring  to  the  extent  of 
being  interrupted.  Bcrryer,  on  the  contrary,  speaks  amid  a 
a  silence  not  merely  attentive,  but  in  some  sort  respectful. 
He  is  listened  to,  and  you  would  fancy  his  sympathizing 
auditory  repeat  in  low  chorus  the  notes  which  flow  from 
that  beautiful  and  melodious  instrument. 

He  enthrals  the  assembly,  he  submits  it  to  his  will,  like 
the  subject  of  the  magnetizer  who  is  made  to  speak,  be  silent, 
walk,  stop,  pursue,  sleep;  but  if  he  once  awake,  the  spell  is 
broken.  In  like  manner,  when  the  assembly  arouses  itself 
and  descends  the  steps  to  go  vote — material  interests,  party 
principles  or  passions  resuming  the  ascendant — it  ballots 
against  the  greatest  of  our  orators  as  if  it  had  only  heard  one 
of  the  officers  of  the  Chamber  cry :  "  Silence,  gentlemen  !" 

Berryer  powerless,  deserted  as  he  is  in  the  sphere  of  his 
principles,  can  do  nothing  but  by  taking  sides  with  the  lib- 
eral Opposition,  and  availing  himself  of  the  weapons  of  that 
Opposition  which  he  wields  to  admiration. 

He  questions,  he  presses,  he  nonplusses  his  adversary,  in 
order  that  he  may  be  thrown  off  his  guard  by  the  confusion, 
and  pierced  on  the  spot  in  default  of  the  cuirass.  A  fact, 
a  document  he  shivers  to  its  base,  but  he  is  careful  not  to 
subvert  it  entirely,  it  being  enough  for  his  purpose  that  it  is 
unable  to  sustain  itself,  in  such  its  shattered  condition.  The 
doubts  he  expresses  pass  for  so  many  affirmations  to  his  au- 
ditors;  but ,  ministers  can  make  no  more  of  them,  against 
him,  than  mere  doubts,  and  he  thus  deprives  them  in  advance 
of  part  of  the  advantages  of  their  reply. 

Should  some  speculator  in  the  secret  funds  of  police, 
should  some  intimate  of  the  Court  kitchen,  feeling  himself 
hit  to  the  quick,  emit  from  his  oesophagus  a  dumb  and  cav- 

20* 


234  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

ernous  groan.  Take  no  notice  that  he  interpellates  the 
orator,  lest  Berryer,  in  turning  about  to  see  who  per- 
mitted himself  thus  to  reply,  should  knock  him  over  with 
the  back  of  his  mallet.  But  if  some  minister  mutter  a  tan- 
gible  interruption,  M.  Berryer  retreats  a  little  backwards  in 
the  tribune ;  and  then  springing  upon  him  as  upon  a  prey, 
he  shakes  him,  he  tosses  him  aloft,  and  letting  him  fall 
back,  he  nails  and  cakes  him  upon  his  seat  by  a  crushing 
reply. 

His  vast  and  faithful  memory  supplies  him  without  effort, 
with  the  most  complicated  dates,  and  he  can  put  his  fin- 
ger, without  hesitation,  on  the  scattered  passages  of  the  nu- 
merous documents  which  he  is  analyzing  and  which  fortify 
the  tissue  of  his  discourses. 

Nothing  can  equal  the  variety  of  his  intonations,  at  times 
simple  and  familiar,  again  bold,  pompous,  ornate,  piercing. 

There  is  nothing  bitter  in  his  vehemence,  nothing  offen- 
sive in  his  personalities. 

He  extracts  from  a  cause  all  that  it  contains  bolh  of  spe- 
cious and  solid,  and  bristles  it  with  arguments  so  close  and 
so  captious,  that  you  know  not  by  what  side  to  approach  or 
to  take  it.  After  he  has  gone  through  the  series  of  his 
proofs,  he  pauses  a  moment ;  then  he  accumulates  them 
upon  each  other  into  a  pile  under  which  he  overwhelms  his 
adversaries. 

A  man  of  the  world,  a  man  of  dissipation  and  pleasure, 
and  of  a  jovial  character,  M.  Berryer  is  not  naturally  labo- 
rious. He  has,  however,  great  aptitude  for  business.  No 
man,  when  he  wishes,  can  more  thoroughly  master  a  ques- 
tion, collect  its  details  with  a  more  curious  investigation,  or 
arrange  them  into  a  more  learned  and  methodical  whole. 

It  may  be  that,  in  the  profusion  of  his  diction,  he  is  not  al- 
ways quite  correct ;  but  this  defect,  common  to  all  our  par- 
liamentary improvisators,  does  not  prejudice  the  effect  of 
the  discourse.  We  have  already  said  that  our  orators  are 
not  to  be  analyzed  or  read,  but  must  be  heard.     Their  fame 


M  .      B  E  R  R  Y  £  R .  235 

would  be  much  greater,  if  the  press  did  not  reproduce  them. 
They  have  an  enemy  in  every  reporter.* 

Since  the  Revolution  of  July,  the  long  and  large  career 
of  our  orators  has  been  marked  by  some  gleams  of  genius, 
some  pithy  axioms,  some  brilliant  thoughts,  some  witty  ex- 
pressions, some  phrases  of  effect,  some  oratorical  effusions ; 
but  there  has  not  been  a  single  discourse  which  would  pass, 
in  print,  for  a  veritable  model  of  eloquence.  They  have 
been  preserved  all  of  them,  printed  in  the  public  collections, 
edited  superbly,  aye,  even  gilt-edged,  but  nobody  reads 
them. 

They  are  like  an  uncorked  jar,  whence  the  ambrosia 
should  have  evajjorated,  and  which  should  be  no  longer 
worthy  of  being  served  up  on  the  table  of  the  gods. 

The  Pythoness  too  is  beautiful  on  her  tripod  and  in  her 
temple ;  but  elsewhere,  she  is  merely  an  old  woman,  naked, 
decrepit,  and  in  whom  we  now  behold  but  her  ugliness  and 
her  rags. 

Yes,  the  printer  has  killed  the  orators,  and  were  I  in  M. 
Berryer's  place,  I  would  prosecute  by  all  legal  means,  even 
that  of  the  correctional  police,  whatever  editor  should  do  me  the 
wrong  and  injury  of  publishing  my  speeches;  and  this  even 
though  he  should  produce  before  the  court  my  signature  at 
the  bottom,  of  Jit  for  the  press  ;  for,  of  course,  he  could  have 
extorted  it  but  by  treachery ^or  by  surprise ! 

But  what  then,  there  would  remain  of  M.  Berryer  but  the 
name !  Well !  what  remains,  I  pray  you,  of  Talma,  of 
(m'lle)  Mars,  of  Paganini  ?  What  remains  of  Apelles,  of 
Phidias,  of  the  comedies  of  Menander,  of  the  sighs  of  Sappho, 
of  the  wisdom  of  Socrates,  and  the  grace  of  Aspasia?  A 
name  alone,  a  name  ! 

Nothing  more ;  and  for  M.  Berryer,  for  his  glory,  this  is 
enough.  Go  now,  drag  this  orator  from  his  sacred  tripod, 
and   hawk  him   without  inspiration   or   voice,  through  the 

*  This  may  be  true  of  the  French  orators ;  and  is  so,  no  doubt,  of  all 
real  oratory.  But  there  are  orators,  whom  we  wot  of,  to  whom,  on  the 
contrary',  the  reporter  is  the  best  of  friends. — Tr's.  N. 


I 


236  REVOIiUTION      OF     JULY. 

streets  in  some  rag  of  a  newspaper  !  Reproduce,  if  you  can, 
by  a  reporter,  that  inimitable  voice  which  sends  a  thrill  of 
delight  through  every  finer  organization !  Mark,  when  he 
brings  such  physically  in  communication  with  him,  how  he 
imparts  to  them,  by  a  sort  of  electricity,  the  vehement  emo- 
tions of  his  own  soul !  He  is  not  only  an  orator  by  his  pas- 
sion and  eloquence,  but  moreover  a  musician  by  the  voice, 
a  painter  by  the  eye,  a  poet  by  the  expression. 

M.  Berryer  does  not  imitate  those  deputies  of  the  Restora- 
tion so  sentimentally  silly,  Avhose  sole  reply  to  the  argu- 
ments of  the  Opposition  was  the  exclamation :  "  I  love  my 
king,  O  my  king !"  M.  Berryer  does  not  content  himself 
thus,  and  if  he  too  loves  his,  of  which  we, have  no  doubt,  at 
least  he  makes  no  display  of  it  for  ostentation.  He  avoids, 
like  a  man  who  knows  his  audience,  to  tread  upon  the  burn- 
ing coals  of  dynastic  personalities,  and  prefers  to  engage 
in  the  higher  themes  of  national  interests,  wherein  his  talent 
has  full  scope  to  soar  and  spread  its  pinions.  He  does  not 
set  himself  to  justify,  item  by  item,  the  blunders  of  the  Res- 
toration. He  avows  them,  and  from  the  brilliant  profusion 
of  his  historical  reminiscences,  he  demonstrates  that  the  pre- 
ceding governments,  in  consequence  of  their  delinquency  to 
the  eternal  duties  of  justice,  have  all  been  wrecked  upon  the 
shoals  and  scattered  by  the  tempest.  This  manner  is  full 
of  grandeur,  and  permits  the  genius  of  Berryer  to  sweep 
freely  in  the  elevated  region  of  principles.  It  is  also  full 
of  tact,  for  without  appearing  to  intend  any  reference  to  the 
ministers,  it  leaves  the  auditors  themselves  to  make  imme- 
diate and  special  application  of  the  general  objections  of  the 
orator. 

M.  Berryer  does  not  ask  indulgence  to  the  dogma  of  Le- 
gitimacy. Pie  does  not  defend  what  is  not,  what  cannot  be, 
admitted  to  debate  in  the  Chamber.  But  he  changes  the 
point  of  attack  and  combats  the  ministry  with  their  own 
weapons.  He  presses  them,  he  pushes  them  from  conse- 
quence to  consequence  to  the  last  extremities  of  parliamen- 
tary argument  j  and,  with  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  in 


M  .     B  E  R  U  Y  E  R  .  237 

his  hand,  he  corners  them  in  their  violation  of  the  Charter 
and  the  perjury  of  their  oaths  of  office. 

So  then,  every  defender  of  the  fallen  powers  who  have 
oppressed  France,  is  obliged,  in  order  to  throw  dust  into  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  to  invoke  the  sacred  name  of  liberty. 
Ah !  let  us  not  complain  of  this  abuse  !  There  must  surely 
be  truth  in  our  cause,  since  our  adversaries  themselves  con- 
fess it.  It  must  needs  have  force  too,  since  they  come  to 
temper  in  it  their  swords  and  even  their  bucklers ;  and  the 
tardy  homage  of  the  Legitimists  advances  the  Liberal  inter- 
est as  much  as  the  combined  treacheries  of  the  Camarilla  and 
the  Doctrine. 

Nevertheless,  we  must  not  deceive  ourselves.  In  heart, 
M.  Berryer  has  not  our  principles,  and  on  his  lips  he  has  not 
even  his  own.  Yes,  his  real  principle — that  vivacious  and 
glowing  Legitimism  which  consumes  him — he  does  not  de- 
fend in  the  tribune ;  he  compresses  it  within  himself,  he 
hides  it  and  seems  to  dread  its  explosion.  He  throws  him- 
self into  the  byways,  as  if  he  feared  to  walk  upon  the  high 
road  of  Goritz,  as  if  for  him  this  road  was  barred  across, 
and  bordered  with  abysses  and  precipices !  He  does  not 
attempt  to  reason,  to  discuss,  to  prove.  His  is  an  eloquence 
of  impulse  rather  than  of  dialectic,  of  action  more  than  of 
thought,  of  sentiment  more  than  of  demonstration.  It  is 
Berryer,  it  is  an  orator,  a  great  orator  you  hear,  but  it  is 
not  a  Legitimist.  He  is  not  a  politician,  he  is  an  orator,  I 
repeat ;  one  of  those  orators  who  cannot  be  said  to  be 
within  their  own  control,  who  are  at  the  least  as  much  over- 
mastered, as  they  overmaster  you,  by  their  ecstasy,  who  can- 
not resist  their  own  excitability,  like  iVI.  Thiers,  like  all  ar- 
tists of  delicate  ororanization. 

Think  not  that  he  seeks,  that  he  solicits  these  inspirations, 
they  arise  spontaneously.  He  trembles  through  every  limb, 
from  head  to  foot.  He  is  moved,  he  weeps,  he  rages,  he 
droops,  he  sinks  beneath  the  emotions  of  the  Chamber  as 
well  as  his  own.  Once  within  the  popular  current,  he  can- 
not remain  there.     He  rolls  with  the  torrent,  he  roars  witlv 


238  REVOLUTION     OP     JULY. 

the  tempest,  you  feel  that  he  oannot  brook  the  narrowness 
of  his  own  principle  ;  that  he  spurns  the  chains  which  fet- 
.  terhim;  that  he  wants  air,  that  he  wants  room,  that  he 
wants  a  Carlist  auditory;  and  without  air,  without  room, 
without  an  audience,  Berryer  is  not  in  his  element.  Fie 
must  fire  the  spectators  to  passion,  pour  abroad  his  soul, 
disport  himself  in  the  billows  of  his  harmonious  voice,  tra- 
verse immensity,  and  expand  himsetf  freely  in  his  august 
flight.  Then  will  he  forget  that  he  is  a  Legitimist,  to  re- 
member but  that  he  is  a  Frenchman.  Then  will  he  be- 
come national.  Like  Antseus,  to  reinvigorate  his  powers, 
he  falls  back  upon  the  generous  soil  of  country.  He  plunges 
into,  he  disappears  in  the  splendor  of  France,  and  returns 
with  his  head  encircled  in  a  magnificent  halo.  He  leads  the 
assembly  around  our  map.  He  marks  on  our  frontiers  Italy, 
Switzerland,  Spain,  Prussia,  Belgium.  He  represents  us 
environed  by  a  girdle  of  steel,  of  foes  and  desolations,  and 
in  his  patriotic  enthusiasm,  he  exclaims  :  "  I  thank  the  Con- 
vention for  having  saved  the  independence  of  France." 

Again,  he  revolts  at  the  cowardly  concessions  of  our  diplo- 
macy, and,  with  his  hand  extended  over  the  tribune  with  a 
gesture  of  singular  expressiveness  :  "  This  hand,"  says  he, 
"  will  wither  before  casting  a  vote  which  may  say  that  the 
ministry  are  duly  jealous  of  the  dignity  of  France.  Never  ! 
never !" 

And  as  if  unable  to  master  his  oratorical  emotion,  he 
turns  incidentally  to  M.  Thiers,  and  says  to  him  :  "  I  honor 
you,  sir,  because  you  have  done  two  honorable  acts,  in  sus- 
taining Ancona,  and  resigning  your  place.  By  what  dis- 
tance soever  we  may  naturally  be  separated,  only  promote 
the  interest  and  the  grandeur  of  France,  and  you  shall  al- 
ways have  my  applause,  because  after  all  I  have  been  born 
in  France,  and  I  mean  to  live  and  die  a  Frenchman  !" 

On  another  occasion  he  represents  Russia  and  England 
contending  with  each  other  for  aggrandizement,  and  his  in- 
dignation is  kindled  to  find  his  brave,  his  glorious  France 


M.     BERRYER.  239 

remain  an  impotent  spectator  of  their  contests  and  of  the 
partition  of  their  conquests. 

*'  Behold  that  vast  antagonism,  political  and  military, 
which  extends  from  the  frontiers  of  Tartary  along  to  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  between  two  nations  who  must 
one  day  meet  one  another  in  mortal  conflict.  Behold,  from, 
the  extremity  of  the  earth  along  to  our  borders,  Eng- 
land arraying  her  warlike  barriers  against  Russia,  by  whom 
she  is  menaced  in  turn  on  the  confines  of  her  magnificent 
Indian  colonies.  Consider  those  grand  expeditions  to  the 
distance  of  five  hundred  leagues  from  the  national  territory  ; 
on  the  one  side,  the  expedition  to  Caboul,  on  the  other,  the 
attempt  upon  Kiva.  Observe  these  two  great  nations  march 
across  the  globe  to  erect  their  lines  of  precaution  against  one 
another.  What,  gentlemen !  and  France,  is  France  to  be 
but  a  Continental  power,  despite  of  those  vast  seas  which 
come  to  roll  their  billows  upon  our  shores,  and  to  solicit,  so 
to  say,  the  genius  of  our  empire  and  our  intelligence  !^' 

This  is  a  fine  image,  and  M.  Berryer,  like  all  the  great 
orators,  particularly  affects  the  figurative  style  in  all  the 
processes  of  his  eloquence. 

There  are,  in  fact,  several  modes  of  acting  powerfully 
upon  public  assemblies.  The  speaker  may  address  himself, 
either  to  their  logic  by  the  vigor  and  conclusiveness  of  his 
reasonings,  or  to  their  wit,  by  the  vivacity  and  piquancy  of 
his  expressions,  allusions,  and  repartees,  or  to  their  hearts, 
by  the  emotions  of  sensibility,  or  to  their  passions,  by  vehe- 
mence of  invective,  or  to  their  imagination,  by  the  splendor 
of  rhetorical  figures.  But  most  frequently  it  is  by  means  of 
figure,  of  imagery,  that  eloquence  produces  its  greatest 
eflTects.  The  prosopopoeia  of  the  warriors  who  fell  at  Mara- 
thon, by  Demosthenes — the  Roman  citizens  affixed  to  the 
infamous  gibbet  of  Verres,  by  Cicero — the  night,  the  terrible 
night  when  the  death  of  Henrietta  broke  upon  two  kingdoms 
like  a  thunder-clap,  by  Bossuet — the  avenging  dust  of  Ma- 
rius,  the  apostrophe  of  the  bayonets  and  the  Tarpeian  rock, 
by  Mirabeau — the  "  audacity,  audacity,  always  audacity," 


240  REVOLUTION     OP     JULY. 

by  Danton— the  Republic  that,  like  Saturn,  is  devouring  its 
own  children,  by  Vergniaud — the  voice  of  liberty  re-echoed 
from  the  lakes  and  mountains,  by  O'Connell — the  car  which 
conveys  the  remains  of  Ireland  to  the  grave,  by  Grattan — 
the  turban  which  marks  on  the  map  the  place  of  the  Turkish 
empire,  by  Lamartine — Algeria,  of  which  the  fruit  does  not 
present  itself  even  in  blossom  upon  the  tree  so  copiously 
watered  with  our  blood,  by  Berryer — the  fathers  of  the  Re- 
volution, those  noble  spirits  looking  down  upon  us  from  the 
heights  of  Heaven,  by  Guizot ;  all  this  is  the  eloquence  of 
imagery. 

What  a  pity  that  Berryer,  that  so  powerful  an  orator,  does 
not  fight  in  the  Liberal  ranks,  at  the  head  of  the  popular 
party  !  How  is  it  that  such  an  intellect  does  not  perceive 
the  inanity  of  the  doctrines  of  Legitimacy  ?  How  is  it  that 
he  does  not  labor  with  us  in  the  ways  of  liberty,  for  the 
emancipation  of  mankind  ?  How  happens  he  not  to  com- 
prehend that  the  principle  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  is 
the  sole  true  one,  that  alone  which  reason  acknowledges, 
that  alone  which  the  future  of  all  the  nations  will  glorify  ? 

Already  Napoleon,  Chateaubriand,  de  Lamenais,  Beran- 
ger,  have  proclaimed  the  future  era  of  the  European  repub- 
lic. Unfortunately,  the  orators  are  not  as  far-seeing  as  these 
great  men.  They  absorb  and  waste  themselves  in  the  petty 
passions  and  prejudices  of  the  moment;  They  are  content 
with  playing  upon  the  instrument  of  speech,  the  airs  of  the 
day  which  meet  their  ears.  They  trifle  away  their  time  in 
amusing  on  the  quarter-deck  of  the  vessel  the  group  who 
stand  around  them  and  clap  their  hands.  But  they  do  not 
cast  their  eyes  over  the  vast  expanse  of  the  surrounding  seas. 
They  do  not  examine  the  direction  of  the.  wind  or  the  course 
of  the  stars,  nor  do  they  seek  in  the  distance  to  discover  the 
coasts  where  the  weather-beaten  vessel  that  bears  humanity 
must  at  last  find  a  port. 


[Llk.m    I^    m.Y    UW\[L     n 


LAMARTINE.  241 


LAMARTINE. 


When  a  Parliament  is  divided  but  between  two  princi- 
ples, such  as  that  of  nationality  and  that  of  privilege,  the 
lesser  shades  of  opinion  fade  away,  the  individualities  disap- 
pear, and  there  is  in  presence  one  of  the  other  but  two  stand- 
ards, two  camps,  two  armies.  This  was  our  situation  under 
the  Restoration.  The  Chamber,  which  is  but  a  large  mirror, 
reflected  then,  as  it  will  always  reflect,  the  out-door  opinions. 
The  oi'ators  of  the  Right  represented  the  nobility,  the  clergy, 
the  magistracy,  the  royal  guard,  the  functionaries  and  the 
Court.  The  orators  of  the  Left  represented  the  students, 
the  soldiers,  the  middle  burgess  class,  the  bar,  the  artists  and 
the  people. 

But  when,  as  at  present,  privilege,  under  the  name  of 
legitimacy,  dares  not  hold  up  its  head  for  fear  of  seeming 
to  be  retrogressive,  and  nationality,  under  the  name  of  sove- 
reignty of  the  people,  dares  not  unfold  itself  for  fear  of 
passing  for  revolutionary,  there  can  be  no  common  ties,  no 
definite  doctrines,  no  staff*,  no  capacious  tent  where  the  chiefs 
might  meet  to  concert  their  plans  for  the  campaign.  There 
will  be  almost  as  many  generals  as  soldiers.  Each  arms, 
equips,  costumes  himself  according  to  his  fancy.  One  wears 
a  shako,  another  a  white  crest  ;  the  third  a  red-cap,  the  next 
goes  without  a  cockade.  Each  makes  war  on  his  own  ac- 
count, posts  himself  in  the  plain  or  on  the  mountain,  fires  on 
the  right  or  the  left  and  wastes  his  powder  and  ball. 

This  parliamentary  pell-mell  images  exactly  the  confusion 
of  our  actual  society.  The  young  dream  of  republican 
institutions.  The  mature  regret  the  glorious  order  of  the 
Empire.      The  nobility,  and  in   part  the  clergy,  invoke 

21 


242  11  EVOLUTION      OP      JULY. 

Henry  V.  The  artizans  and  laborers  want  work.  The 
electoral  body  want  monopoly.  The  burgess  class  want 
repose,  they  care  not  how  or  under  whom.  The  military 
party  want  despotism.  The  Doctrinarian  party  want  power 
and  pelf.  The  national  party  want  liberty  and  equality, 
and  the  socialist  party  do  not  know  what  they  want. 

What  then  is  this  socialist  party  ?  The  socialist  party  is 
a  medley  of  Saintsimonianism,  Quixotism  and  a  bastard  Lib- 
eralism, dazzling  with  words  and  destitute  of  ideas. 

Each  party  desires  to  have  in  the  Chambers  a  represen- 
tative of  its  opinions,  because  the  finest  theories  remain,  out- 
side the  Chambers,  but  mere  theories.  But  in  the  Cham- 
bers, when  they  triumph,  they  take  the  name  and  authority 
of  laws  and  are  turned  to  practice.  But,  all  opinions,  by 
the  invincible  tendency  of  human  affairs,  point  to  some  ap- 
plication. There  is  not  an  Utopia,  even  the  wildest,  that 
does  not  pretend  to  idealize  its  visions.  Those  who  begin 
with  disinterestedness  strive  to  end  with  power. 

The  socialist  party  has  not  been  behind  others,  and  imag- 
ined it  found  a  representative  in  M.  de  Lamartine. 

There  are  two  personages  in  M.  de  Lamartine — the  poli- 
tician and  the  poet ;  but  as  the  politician  is  but  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  poet,  it  will  be  proper  first  to  define  the  latter. 
But  here  is  the  manner  in  which  the  most  accredited  critics 
of  my  time  define  and  estimate  M.  de  Lamartine. 

France,  say  they,  has  had  its  revolutions  in  literature  as 

in  politics.     In  the  days  of  Montaigne  and  Amiot,  our  tongue 

rwas  little  else  than  Greek  and  Latin  written  in  French.     It 

would  seem  the  lips  of  these  writers  still  clung  to  the  dugs 

of  antiquity,  replete  with  milk  so  pure  and  abundant. 

The  style  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV.  attains  the  perfection 
of  full-grown  manhood.  It  has  maturity,  vigor  and  color- 
ing, majesty  and  grace.  It  is  forcible  without  being  strained ; 
original  without  being  quaint ;  simple  without  being  vul- 
gar ;  pompous  without  being  pedantic.  One  imagines  see- 
ing still  the  Greek  blood  flow  in  its  veins  which  it  swells 
and  blues  beneath  the  translucent  skin. 


LAMARTINE.  243 

I 

Subsequently,  the  invasion  of  a  host  of  philosophical  and 
industrial  terms,  as  well  as  the  derivatives  from  the  British 
and  Sclavonic  idioms,  spoiled  the  language  while  enriching 
it,  as  a  river,  swollen  by  the  mixture  of  several  streams,  is 
apt  to  lose  the  limpidity  of  its  fountain. 

Voltaire,  however,  kept  alive  the  sacred  fire  of  ancient 
literature,  and  he  is,  by  the  universality  of  his  knowledge, 
his  exquisite  purity  of  taste,  and  the  justness  of  his  under- 
standing, immeasurably  above  all  our  living  men  of  letters — 
a  thing  which  they,  we  well  know,  will  not  allow. 

There  is  more  true  philosophy  in  a  single  page  of  Vol- 
taire than  in  all  the  pages  together  of  MM.  Cousin,  Jouffroy 
&  Co.,  who  strive  far  too  much  after  the  sublime  and  the 
profound.  Voltaire  is  one  of  the  latest  masters  of  good 
sense.  Do  you  know  what  one  of  the  Lycophrons  of  our  , 
day,  who  dig  for  their  style  underground,  makes  a  reproach 
to  this  Voltaire,  this  puny  genius?  Why,  that  he  is  too 
luminous  !     So  is  the  sun  too  luminous  for  moles. 

In  like  manner  as  our  literary  prose,  our  poetry  bears  no 
longer  any  resemblance  to  the  ancient  poetry.  It  is  no  more 
one  of  the  graces  whom  the  brilliant  genius  of  Athens  used 
to  crown  with  flowers.  It  is  a  howling  spectre  that  rattles 
its  bones  at  you  from  the  cavity  of  the  tombs. 

M.  de  Lamartine  seems  to  have  thrown  his  entire  poet- 
soul  into  his  first  meditations.  He  sung,  and  Naples — the 
voluptuous  Naples — appeared  to  breathe  in  his  verses. 
Those  beautiful  shores  of  Italy,  those  Isles  of  enchantment, 
those  odoriferous  breezes,  those  languishing  plaints  of  love, 
those  softening  notes  that  flowed  from  his  lyre,  threw  us  into 
a  sort  of  vague  and  melancholy  sadness.  It  was  neither 
-pure  like  antiquity,  nor  severe  like  Christianity,  nor  positive 
like  the  age :  but  it  was  a  poetry  tender  and  dreamy  which 
had  a  charm  like  the  passing  of  an  autumn  shade,  the  mur- 
mur of  a  billow,  the  sighing  of  a  virgin,  the  meanings  of  a  harp. 

Had  there  but  been  in  those  times  a  little  literary  criticism, 
M.  de  Lamartine,  who  knew  how  to  write,  would  have 
learned  to  think.     He  sings  too  negligently.     He  outrages 


244  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

the  grammatical  connection  of  words  and  the  rational  con- 
nection of  ideas.  He  affects  constantly  the  same  note,  a 
monotonous  note.  He  employs  constantly  the  same  color, 
the  azure  color.  It  is  the  azure  of  the  eye,  the  azure  of  the 
firmament,  the  azure  of  the  sea,  azures,  always  azures ! 
He  selects  a  tomb-stone,  he  turns  it  on  every  side ;  he  takes 
its  square  and  cube ;  he  delineates  and  colors  the  smallest 
blades  of  grass  that  grow  around  it ;  he  depicts  one  by  one 
the  leaves  of  the  cypress  that  overshadows  it ;  then  he  wears 
away  the  stone  with  his  knees,  his  tears,  and  his  lamenta- 
tions. He  counts  upon  his  watch  the  pulsations  of  a  dying 
person.  Dead,  he  takes  him,  dissects  the  flesh,  trepans  the 
skull,  and  cracks  the  bones.  But  is  not  this  the  grief  of  an 
anatomist  rather  than  the  grief  of  a  poet,  a  grief  true,  deep, 
natural,  genuine  ?  Oh !  how  much  are  we  more  touched 
to  hear  Malherbe  cry  : 

Elle  etait  de  ce  monde^  oil  les  ^lus  belles  choses^ 

Out  le  pire  destiny 
Et  rose*  elle  a  vicu  ce  que  vivent  les  roses^ 

U  espace  d^un  matin ! 

A  child  of  earth,  where  darkest  doom 

Awaits  the  pure  and  fair, 
A  rose,  she  bloomed,  as  roses  bloom, 

But  one  brief  morning  there. 

To  describe,  to  analyze,  like  Dubartas  and  Rensard,  the 
most  secret  beauties  of  a  woman,  the  eyebrows  and  iris  of 
her  eyes,  the  moles  of  her  skin,  the  enamel  of  her  teeth,  the 
veins  of  her  bosom,  the  delicacy  of  her  figure,  even  with 
accompaniment  of  some  languishing  metaphysics,  this  is  but 
to  relapse  to  the  infancy  of  the  art. 

*  I  remember  an  anecdote  respecting  this  passage,  which  seems  worth 
relating,  if  only  to  mitigate  the  well-known  wrath  of  authors  against 
"  printers'  devils."  The  subject  of  the  poem  was  named  Rosette ;  and  the 
line  ran  originally :  Et  Rosette  a  v6cu,  &c.  But  the  poet  it  seems  omitted 
"  to  cross  his  ^'s''  (not  having  been  a  printer,  or  editor,  or  school-master,) 
and  the  proof  sent  hitn  read /?oseZZe ;  which  instantly  striking  his  fancy, 
through  the  ear  probably,  produced  the  present  form,  which  is  the  greatest 
beauty  of  the  verses,— Tr's.  N. 


L  A  M  A  R  T  I  N  E .  245 

Praxiteles  did  not  surcharge  his  Venus  with  coquettish 
ornaments,  with  roses,  pink  flowers  and  ostrich  feathers. 
He  put  no  paint  on  her  cheeks,  and  no  rubies  on  her  fingers. 
He  drew  her  bare,  but  decent,  beautiful,  and  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  nature.  All  the  greatest  geniuses  have  been 
characterized  by  simplicity — all — Homer,  Virgil,  Racine, 
Shakspeare,  Raphael. 

The  true  poets  have  been  as  great  logicians  as  the  philos- 
ophers. Who  has  better  known  the  human  heart  than  Mo- 
liere,  better  painted  than  old  Corneille  the  grandeur  of  vir- 
tue, better  sighed  than  Racine  the  subtle  weaknesses  of  love  ? 
Who  had  ever  a  sounder  taste,  a  more  exact  intellect, 
than  Voltaire  ?  And  in  our  own  day,  can  the  government, 
the  bar,  or  the  tribune  produce  a  man  with  a  correcter  judg- 
ment than  that  of  Beranger  ?  It  is  that  poetry,  true  poetry, 
is  but  reason  ornamented  by  imagination  and  rhythm. 

Unfortunately,  this  cannot  be  said  of  the  poems  of  M.  de 
Lamartine.  He  utters  some  sublime  cries,  cries  of  the 
soul.  He  brings  out  some  unexpected  notes,  which  ravish 
the  ear.  But  also,  what  a  disorder  of  imagination !  what  a 
multitude  of  false  and  broken  notes  in  his  melody !  what 
profusion  of  ambitious  epithets  !  what  abuse  of  description, 
of  inversion,  of  metaphor,  and  color !  Of  plan  and  arrange- 
ment, not  a  trace.  Of  dramatic  progression,  not  a  step.  M. 
de  Lamartine  seems  to  have  forgotten  that  words  are  not 
ideas ;  nor  the  clash  of  sounds,  harmony ;  nor  confusion, 
science  ;  nor  physiology,  sorrow.  If  the  French  should  be- 
come a  dead  language,  and  M.  de  Lamartine  should  go 
down  to  posterity  with  the  other  poets  of  the  decline,  he  will 
be  found,  from  the  incoherence  of  his  thoughts  and  his  style, 
one  of  the  authors  the  most  difficult  to  be  explained,  and  will 
one  day  be  the  despair  of  school-boys  and  commentators. 

Such  is  the  judgment  of  the  crhics  upon  M.  de  Lamar- 
tine as  poet.  But  he  is  judged  still  more  severely  as  deputy 
by  the  puritans  of  the  Left,  and  here  is  their  estimate. 

M.  de  Lamartine,  as  a  political  orator,  lives  upon  his 
poetical  reputation.     There  is  nothing  of  passion,  nothing 

21* 


246  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

of  inspiration  in  his  aspect,  gesture,  or  voice.  He  is  dry, 
measured,  sententious,  cold.  He  shines  but  does  not  warm. 
He  is  religious  but  has  no  faith.  He  does  not  feel  his  heart 
throb,  his  lips  tremble,  and  his  speech  take  fire  and  life. 

It  is  not  that  M.  de  Lamartine  is  distinguished  in  his 
poetry  by  the  qualities  of  the  ages  of  Augustus  and  of  Louis 
XIV. — the  learned  disposition  of  the  plan,  the  preservation 
of  the  characters,  the  nice  gradation  of  art,  the  skill  in  de- 
tails, the  purity  of  the  touch  and  outline,  the  sequence  and 
justness  of  the  thoughts.  But  here,  at  least,  the  constraint 
of  metre  and  rhyme,  forces  his  ideas  into  some  degree  of 
order,  which  is  not  observed  in  his  speeches.  His  oratorical 
style  is  flat  and  fluent,  and  rocks  from  one  leg  to  the  other. 
Still  more  glittering  than  brilliant,  more  monotonous  than 
harmonious,  more  inflated  than  full,  he  lacks  the  free,  ease- 
ful, firm,  and  natural  step  of  well-written  prose.  He  can- 
not march  without  a  baggage  of  unmeaning  epithets.  He 
abandons  the  idea  to  pursue  the  pleasing  sounds  of  the  ear 
and  the  effects  of  prosody.  He  delights  and  dwells  com- 
placently in  the  euphonious  terminations.  He  drowns  his 
thoughts  in  a  deluge  of  tropes  and  metaphors,  and  his  par- 
liamentary motions  always  end  with  the  tail  of  a  strophe. 
If  by  your  melodious  phrases  you  only  mean  to  give  us  mu- 
sic we  would  quite  as  lief  go  hear  Rossini.  M.  de  Lamar- 
tine is  to  our  good  orators  what  rhetoric  is  to  eloquence. 

Parliament  is  not  a  theatre  where  actors  may  come  to 
utter  their  fliite-like  amplifications  and  flowing  periods,  for 
the  amusement  of  the  spectators.  You  say  you  represent 
the  people  !  Speak  then  as  the  people  would  who  should 
speak  properly. 

M.  de  Lamartine  may  astonish  the  country-members  by 
the  scintillations  of  his  coloring,  but  he  ofiends  the  delicacy 
of  men  of  taste.  Deliberative  oratory  has  its  rules  and  its 
beauties,  which  are  not  the  rules  and  beauties  of  lyric  poe- 
try. The  style  of  the  orator  should  be  full,  but  perspicu- 
ous. His  thoughts  should  be  lofty,  but  simple.  They  should 
move  and  be  combined  in  a  precise  and  logical  order.     But 


LAMARTINE.  247 

M.  de  Lamartine  is  diffuse  and  redundant.  He  has  neither 
profundity  of  ideas,  nor  vigor  of  argumentation.  You  meet 
people,  however,  who  take  his  parliamentary  dithyrambics 
for  eloquence.  With  reason,  indeed,  is  it  said  that  we  are 
in  the  midst  of  universal  anarchy,  for  not  only  has  France 
lost  all  political  virtue,  but  moreover  that  which  she  had 
maintained  in  all  vicissitudes,  she  has  lost  her  good  taste. 

We  go  farther  :  the  oratorical  phraseology  of  M.  de  La- 
martine has  more  of  show  than  of  body,  more  splendor  than 
depth,  more  variety  than  vigor,  more  sonorousness  than  sub- 
stance, more  copiousness  than  precision,  more  development 
than  connection. 

Far  be  it  from  us  not  to  render  full  justice  to  the  moral 
and  religious  sentiments  of  M.  de  Lamartine,  to  his  lofty 
character,  his  amiable  qualities,  and  his  noble  heart.  He 
has  ever  a  generous  word  to  oppose  to  the  arbitrary  and  vin- 
dictive proceedings  of  power,  and  we  thank  him  for  these 
inspirations  of  his  virtue.  But  as  he  is  ignorant  of  the  lan- 
guage of  business  and  does  not  attack  abuse  on  its  practical 
side,  nor  descend  to  applications,  the  ministers  willingly  leave 
him  to  wander  and  lose  himself  in.  the  vague  of  his  orations. 
They  laugh  scornfully  at  your  fine  sentiments. 

Though  M.  de  Lamartine  should  preach  to  them  the  whole 
day  long,  Bible  in  hand,  about  parliamentary  moralities, 
what  effect,  tell  me,  could  that  have  upon  the  mammon- 
worshippers  of  the  ministry  ?  They  have  never  had  any 
pretension  of  getting  to  heaven  by  means  of  their  good 
works.  Ah  !  my  God,  provided  they  are  left  in  peace  upon 
earth,  with  their  offices,  their  secret  funds,  their  telegraphs, 
their  bottle,  and  their  treatises  of  America,  of  the  East,  of 
Africa,  they  ask  no  more. 

Let  a  poet,  if  he  will,  sing,  upon  the  same  lyre,  of  the 
sufferings  of  the  Cross  and  the  mysteries  of  Isis  ;  let  him 
celebrate  in  the  same  strain  the  purity  of  Christian  virginity 
and  the  voluptuous  graces  of  the  yellow-haired  Nesera  ;  let 
him,  about  the  same  time,  write  enthusiastic  odes  to  Napo- 
leon and  solemn  hymns  to  liberty,  there  can  be  no  objection. 


248  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

Passions  of  the  heart,  diversity  of  character,  fall  of  empires, 
heroes,  wars,  festivals,  natural  scenery,  flowers,  volcanoes, 
tempests,  zephyrs,  thunder,  ocean,  sky,  stars,  immensity, 
the  whole  universe  is  legitimate  ground. 

But  when  the  poet  turns  deputy,  when  he  deigns  to  sit 
with  the  herd  of  his  colleagues  on  the  benches  of  Parlia- 
ment,  he  is  asked,  and  he  is  asked  rightfully  :  Whence  do 
you  come,  what  principles  do  you  espouse,  what  office  do 
you  look  for  ?  The  business  here  is  not  to  sing,  to  keep 
gazing  on  the  blue  firmament  and  perch  in  the  clouds.  Are 
you  man  or  bird,  angel  or  demon  ?  Do  you  dwell  in  heaven 
or  upon  the  earth  ?  Do  you  mean  to  be  a  Legitimist,  a  Re- 
publican, or  an  ambassador  ?  Come,  speak,  that  this  may 
be  known,  and  you  accordingly  denominated. 

You  inform  us  that  there  are  two  standards,  the  white  and 
the  tri-colored.  We  know  this  well ;  but  what  we  do  not 
know  is,  to  which  of  them  you  belong  ?  You  sound  upon 
your  theorbo  equally  the  praises  of  the  republican  soldiery 
and  of  the  Vendeans ;  but  on  which  side  do  you  plant  your 
tent  ?  You  shed  floods  of  evangelical  tears  over  the  hard- 
heartedness  of  the  ministry,  and  then,  when  comes  the  mo- 
ment to  ballot,  a  sort  of  heathen  change  takes  place  at  the 
end  of  your  fingers,  and  the  white  ball  slips  through  them  ! 
You  support  bad  laws  to  secure  the  good-will  of  the  minis- 
ters, and  you  say  these  bad  laws  are  good  for  nothing,  in 
order  to  please  the  Opposition  !  You  philanthropize  about 
the  wants  of  the  French  working-class,  and  you  make  them 
pay  American  philanthropy  twenty-five  millions  !  You  laud 
the  minister  for  having  maintained  what  you  call  public 
order,  and  you  blame  him  for  prosecuting  those  who  express 
their  indignation  at  this  sort  of  order  !  You  were  an  ad- 
mirer of  the  great  Perier,  the  small  Thiers  and  his  com- 
pany, and  then  when  the  small  Thiers  asked  your  support 
for  the  secret  funds  to  the  end  of  continuing  in  office  the 
subject  of  your  admiration,  you  refused  peremptorily  the 
secret  funds !  You  stigmatize  slavery,  and,  at  the  same  mo- 
ment, you  hold  that  society  may  put  the  citizen  in  chains  ? 


L  A  xM  A  R  T  I  N  E .  249 

You  profess  negro-emancipation,  and  you  vote  the  govern- 
ment money  and  soldiers  to  prevent  that  emancipation  !  You 
plead  eloquently  the  cause  of  foundlings,  and  lament  the 
wretchedness  of  the  people,  and  you  take  ground  against  the 
conversion  of  the  interest  accruing  from  the  money  of  the 
people  !  Try,  then,  to  reconcile  a  little  better,  though  at 
the  risk  of  displeasing  the  ministry,  your  peroration  with 
your  exordium,  and  your  ^conclusions  with  your  premises! 

But  where  M.  de  Lamartine  has  completely  forgotten 
himself,  was  when  he  was  led  by  some  strange  and  inexpli- 
cable caprice,  to  defend  the  Disjunction  law.  In  any  other 
country  and  with  any  other  Chamber,  a  ministry  which 
should  permit  itself  to  procure  the  escape  of  the  culprit 
while  bringing  to  trial  the  accomplices,  would  have  been 
itself  impeached  for  violation  of  the  law.  If  the  Strasburg 
Jury  did  not  unanimously  acquit  the  companions  of  Louis 
Bonaparte,  it  would  have  been  wanting  to  the  divine  law 
which  is  the  law  of  conscience,  and  to  the  civil  law  which 
is  the  law  of  reason.  M.  de  Lamartine,  in  defending  this 
stupid  and  abominable  Disjunction  law,  has  erred  through 
want  of  judgment — a  thing  that  does  not  surprise  us  ;  and 
also  through  defect  of  heart — a  thing  which  has  afflicted 
those  who  love  him.     After  this,  put  your  trust  in  poets  ! 

His  whole  discourse,  in  this  unfortunate  debate,  was  but 
a  tedious  vagary  and  a  heap  of  contradictions  and  incon- 
sequences of  every  sort.  He  declares  that  beyond  all  things 
he  loves  liberty  and  equality,  and  he  delivers  the  most  aris- 
tocratic speech  of  the  session.  He  stigmatizes  the  Disjunc- 
tion law  by  calling  it  a  legislative  Coup  d'  Etat,  and  yet  he 
votes  for  this  ministerial  trick.  He  respects  the  immuta- 
bility  of  the  Charter,  and  he  wants  a  second  constituent  As- 
sembly. He  wishes  to  preserve  the  country,  and  he  excuses 
an  armed  attack  upon  that  country.  He  has  but  just  learned 
the  distinction  between  connexity  and  indivisibility,  and  he 
disserts,  like  Bartholus,  upon  this  distinction  of  transcen- 
dental jurisprudence.  He  insists  upon  obedience  to  the  laws, 
and  he  saps  the  inviolability  of  the  Jury.     He  reproves  mil- 


250  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

itary  revolutions,  but  he  would  resign  himself  to  popular 
revolutions,  provided,  behold  you,  that  they  occurred  only 
now  and  then ;  and  the  rest  of  the  speech  is  of  the  same 
calibre. 

For  the  rest,  M.  de  Lamartine  was  not  here  in  his  proper 
element,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  has  rambled  from  his 
subject.  How  should  he  be  expected  to  speak  the  language 
of  business  ?  he  does  not  know  even  the  cant  of  it,  happily 
for  his  muse.  But  he  sometimes,  not  always,  shines  in  lite- 
rary questions,  which  have  constituted  the  study  and  the 
glory  of  his  life,  and  in  questions  of  sentiment,  which  is  the 
poetry  of  noble  hearts. 

We  respectfully  listen,  when  M.  de  Lamartine,  a  religious 
bard,  chants  a  hymn  to  religion.  We  laugh,  when  M. 
Thiers,  a  frivolous  scoffer  and  a  Voltarian  sceptic,  invokes 
the  divine  Providence.  It  is  that  the  one  believes  in  some- 
thing, the  other  in  nothing. 

But,  if  M.  de  Lamartine,  in  place  of  chanting,  attempts  to 
reason,  it  behooves  us  to  see  that  his  argument  does  not  of- 
fend against  the  rules  of  logic,  and  also  not  to  receive  his 
figures,  as  conclusive,  without  verifying  the  arithmetic. 

M.  de  Lamartine  approaches  sometimes  nearer  the  truth 
than  the  other  speakers,  carried  away  as  he  is,  uncon- 
sciously, by  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the  principles 
which  he  lays  down,  and  he  is  left  uninterrupted  to  finish 
expressions  of  a  radical  tendency,  which  Garnier-Pages 
would  not  be  permitted  to  begin.  It  is  that  a  parliamentary 
auditory  attaches  no  serious  importance  to  the  opinion  of 
poets.  It  knows  that  they  pursue  in  politics,  through  the 
affairs  of  society,  as  in  poetry,  through  the  fields,  the  shad- 
owy or  sunny  caprices  of  their  imagination ; — like  those 
harps  of  iEolia  which,  suspended  in  the  sacred  groves,  used 
to  tremble  languidly  to  the  breath  of  the  zephyrs,  or  vibrate 
sonorously  to  the  blast  of  the  storm.  * 

Let  M.  de  Lamartine  not  deceive  himself:  if  the  Cham- 
ber lends  him  a  general  and  kind  attention,  when  he  speaks 
of  literature  and  morality,  it  is,  that,  by  a  secret  self-corn- 


LAMARTINE.  251 

placency,  there  is  not  a  single  deputy,  ministerial  or  puritan, 
who  does  not  pique  himself  upon  being  a  man  of  sense  and 
taste.  But.  too  often,  while  M.  de  Lamartine  is  advocating 
human  literature,  he  falls  into  the  rhapsodical.  It  seems  as 
if  he  made  up  his  discourse  of  broken  hexameters,  ear- 
cadences,  and  unfinished  phrases.     Aegri  somnia. 

A  cloud -traveller,  he  delights  in  a  sort  of  aerial  and 
quintessential  metaphysics,  which  he  imagines  to  be  social 
science,  and  which  is  in  fact  but  a  sort  of  dreamy  deism  ap- 
plied to  the  things  of  earth.  He  constructs,  in  his  visions,  defi- 
nitions of  it  so  irregular,  that  the  meaning  defies  all  analysis. 

Take,  for  example,  his  theory  of  Literature  : 

"  The  beautiful  is  the  virtue  of  the  intellect.  In  restrict- 
ing its  worship,  let  us  beware  of  impairing  the  virtue  of  the 
heart." 

What  is  to  be  thought  of  M.  de  Lamartine  retailing,  in 
full  Chamber,  such  enigmatical  nonsense,  and  what  think 
you  especially  of  the  hypocritical  deputies  who  gave  it  their 
applause  ? 

Strange,  but  too  common  perversity  of  noble  minds  !  M. 
de  Lamartine  holds  himself  in  high  esteem  but  as  publicist, 
and  perhaps  as  financier.  He  disdains  his  quality  of  poet. 
What  is  it,  for  M.  de  Lamartine,  to  be  a  poet  ?  It  is  only 
for  pastime  that  he  calls  for  his  lyre,  and  if  he  was  ap- 
prised  that  the  nine  Muses  were  up  stairs  and  expected  to 
hear  from  him,  he  would  carelessly  take  up  his  pen  and 
deign  to  write  them  in  verse,  as  M.  le  Due  de  Broglie  too 
condescends  sometimes  to  write  in  prose. 

We  do  not  deny  that  the  talent  of  M.  de  Lamartine  pos- 
sesses considerable  readiness  and  versatility.  He  improvi- 
sates,  he  retorts  even  with  a  brilliant  facility,  sometimes 
with  great  happiness  of  turn  and  expression,  always  with 
that  conviction  by  so  much  the  more  animated  and  the  more 
dangerous  to  the  generality  of  assemblies,  and  to  the  orator 
himself,  that  he  doubts  of  nothing,  because  he  discerns,  in 
the  hasty  and  consequently  incomplete  vision  of  his  imagi- 
nation, but  one  half  the  object,  while  the  other  escapes  his 


252  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

ken.  In  poetry,  M.  de  Lamartine  flings  his  sheets  to  the 
printer,  as  in  prose,  his  speeches  to  the  auditory,  just  as  the 
matter  occurs  to  him,  as  fast  as  he  can  put  it  oh  paper  and 
without  concerning  himself  about  what  goes  before  or  what 
follows.  In  one  word,  M.  de  Lamartine  does  not  work  suf- 
ficiently ;  and  without  the  long,  persevering  and  profound 
meditations  of  study,  there  can  be  no  logical  solidity.  But 
it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  to  writers  and  parliamentary 
speakers,  It  is  hy  logic  only  they  can  liope  to  live.'^ 

Our  representative  government  has  been  so  arranged  that 
people  of  imagination  are  little  adapted  for  it.  Our  legisla- 
tion has  a  technical  language  which  it  is  necessary  to  have 
acquired.  It  bristles  with  law  terms,  frequently  barbarous, 
and  founded  upon  scholastic  subtleties.  Hence,  the  large 
number  of  acute  and  crafty  lawyers  in  the  Chambers. 
And  they  are  there  in  their  proper  sphere.  For  to  make 
laws  is  to  discuss,  and  they  are  eminently  men  of  discussion. 
We  will  not  say  however  with  Plato  :  take  the  poets  by  the 
hand,  and  afier  having  crowned  them  with  flowers,  conduct 
them  politely  to  the  frontiers  of  the  republic.  We  will  not 
say  with  Paul-Louis  Courier,  that  in  general  literary  men, 
in  office,  lose  their  talents' without  gaining  a  knowledge  of 
business  ;  nor  with  Lafitte,  that  M.  de  Lamartine  might  be 
a  great  poet,  but  that  he  was  not  a  great Jogician. 

At  the  same  time,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  the  poets 
are  rather  out  of  place  on  the  bench  of  Correctional  Police, 
in  the  Council  of  State,  in  the  Stamp  and  registration  office, 
or  even  in  the  capacity  of  ambassadors.  We  should  greatly 
scandalize  M.  de  Lamartine,  were  we  to  pretend  that  a  vil- 
lage mayor,  in  wooden  shoes  if  you  will,  possessed  of  sense 
and  experience,  would  govern  more  wisely  than  he  the 
affairs  of  the  nation,  and  yet  we  should  not  scruple  to  af- 
firm it,  and  we  would  find  many  to  believe  us. 

*  A  maxim  which  should  be  inscribed  upon  every  temple  of  education 
of  the  age,  and  which  will  become  more  and  more  evident  and  operative 
with  the  progress  of  scientific  philosophy  and  intellectual  civilization. 

Tr's.  N. 


LAMARTINE.  253 

If  M.  de  Lamartine  should  deem  us  puritans  rather  se- 
vere, it  is  that  he  ought  not  to  have  left  his  natural  vocation, 
and  that  having  turned  statesman,  it  is  our  duty  to  say  what 
we  think  of  the  inconsistencies  of  character  and  conduct  of 
the  statesman. 

When  a  man  desires  social  amelioration,  he  should  desire 
political  amelioration.  When  a  man  knows  anything  of 
logic,  he  does  not  speak  for  a  measure,  but  in  the  end 
to  conclude  against  it.  WJien  a  man  is  deputy,  he  ought  to 
know  what  he  wants,  what  he  is,  what  party  he  sides  with, 
what  principles  he  supports.  He  who  loves  glory  sincerely 
will  twine  but  for  glorious  brows  the  laurels  of  poetry.  He 
who  loves  the  people  sincerely,  will  not  ask  for  them  bread, 
but  labor,  respect  and  equality.  He  who  loves  liberty  sin- 
cerely will  not  vote  with  its  enemies  ! 

Such  are  the  reproaches,  classical  on  the  one  hand,  politi- 
cal on  the  other,  w^hich  the  critics  and  the  puritans  address 
to  M.  de  Lamartine,  as  poet,  as  orator,  and  as  statesman. 
Let  me  be  allowed,  in  turn,  to  consider  him  under  these  three 
aspects. 

Beyond  doubt,  M.  de  Lamartine  is  not  a  poet  of  a  classical 
taste.  He  has  not  been  cast  in  the  mould  of  the  antique 
Apollo.  But  he  is  the  greatest  extemporizer  of  verses  in 
the  French  language.  He  is  original,  as  all  men  of  genius 
are,  in  his  own  way.  He  is  negligent,  but  he  is  simple, 
precisely  because  he  is  negligent.  He  sports  with  the 
rhyme  and  the  measure,  transforms,  moulds  and  adapts 
them  to  all  his  inspirations,  to  his  every  fantasy.  The  celes- 
tial spheres  roll  not  through  immensity  with  more  harmony 
than  his  verses.  The  rivulet  flows  not  through  the  meadow 
with  a  gentler  murmur.  The  bird  is  not  fresher  in  its  ear- 
liest song.  The  lakes  of  Sicily,  ruflled  by  the  languid 
breezes,  do  not  lighten,  at  night,  with  purer  or  softer  rays. 
And  it  is  not  alone  his  voice  that  sings,  it  is  his  soul  that 
sighs  and  speaks  to  mine  the  mystic  language  of  sympathy, 
that  vibrates  through  my  frame,  that  thrills  my  whole  being 
and   inundates  me  with  floods  of  tenderness  and  tears.     It 

22 


254  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

is  his  meditation  that  transports  me  on  wings  of  flame,  into 
the  regions  of  eternity,  of  death,  of  time,  of  space,  of  thought 
never  before  visited  by  me,  and  which  gives  expression  to 
metaphysical  truth  in  a  language  picturesque,  sublime, 
seraphic. 

I  know  not  if  the  ccesura  of  his  verse  is  not  sometimes 
broken,  if  his  rhymes  be  always  perfect,  if  the  idea  be  not 
expressed  with  confusion,  with  contradiction,  if  the  chords 
of  his  lyre  do  not  render  everlastingly  the  same  tone, — and 
I  do  not  wish  to  know  it.  Do  not  the  paired  oars  beat  the 
wave  with  an  equal  and  measured  cadence  ?  Do  I  com- 
plain that  the  linnet  warbles  over  and  over  the  same  sweet 
song  ?  Does  not  the  nightingale  intoxicate  me  always — 
undiminishedly — with  its  melody,  beauty  with  her  gaze,  and 
the  violet  with  its  fragrance  ?  Do  I  turn  away  my  ear  from 
the  distant  sound  of  the  waterfall,  and  my  eyes  from  the 
unchanging  splendor  of  the  stars  ?  How  should  the  soul 
that  suffers  not  emit  eternally  the  same  cry  ?  The  mother 
who  has  just  lost  her  son,  does  she  not  love  to  pour  the  incon- 
solable repetitions  of  her  grief?  In  like  manner,  am  I  to 
expect  Lamartine  to  prove,  in  a  melodious  syllogism,  the 
abstract  truth  of  his  song  ?  No,  I  ask  him  to  rave  upon  his 
lyre  and  I  rave,  to  sigh  and  T  sigh,  to  love  and  I  love,  to  en- 
joy and  1  enjoy  ! 

Who  could  deny,  without  injustice;  that  Lamartine  and 
Victor  Hugo  have  enriched  with  their  brilliants  our  poetic 
crown  already  so  effulgent?  Both  irregular  in  their  march 
and  rebellious  to  the  restraints  of  grammar.  Both  no  doubt 
more  attentive  to  the  word  than  the  idea,  to  inversion  than 
simplicity,  to  novelty  than  method,  to  the  surprising  than  to 
the  natural,  and  sometimes  to  the  rhyme  than  to  the  reason. 
Both  a  little  somniferous  in  their  monotony,  somewhat  stun- 
ning by  the  hubbub  of  their  raptures.  But  both  powerful 
intellects,  original  geniuses  come  to  reinvigorate  our  ex- 
hausted literature.  The  one  throwing  off  flame  and  sparkles 
like  an  East-Indian  carbuncle  ;  the  other  sighing  like  the 
harp  of  Fingal  amid  the  desolate  heaths.     The  one  uncon- 


'  L  AM  ART!  N  E.  255 

trolled  in  his  lyric  impetuosity,  too  prodigal  of  his  force  and 
wealth,  extravagant,  fantastic,  sometimes  sublime  ;  the  other 
more  religious,  more  meditative,  more  enveloped  in  allego- 
ries and  symbols,  more  in  communication  with  heaven  and 
singing  as  if  he  prayed.  The  one  torturing  his  rhyme  and 
violating  the  Muse,  whom  the  other  caresses.  The  one, 
with  bent  arm,  seeming  to  draw  with  effort  from  his  bow, 
inflated  and  victorious  sounds  ;  the  other  abandoning  him- 
self like  a  limpid  stream  to  his  facile  and  flowing  genius.  The 
one  more  precise,  but  more  attempered  with  the  philosophical 
moralities  ;  the  other  more  inspired,  but  more  mystical.  The 
one,  with  more  dramatic  skill,  interweaving  man  in  the 
scenes  of  nature  ;  the  other  more  tender,  more  feeling,  more 
persuasive,  more  eloquent  in  depicting  the  sentiments  of  the 
heart  and  the  mysterious  labyrinths  of  thought.  The  one 
more  dazzling,  more  thundering  than  the  bolt  which  leaps 
from  crag  to  crag,  and  displodes  in  a  thousand  flashes  amid 
the  deep  gorges  of  Hemus  ;  the  other  more  pensive,  more 
visionary  than  the  virgins  of  Israel  along  the  banks  of  the 
lonely  river  that  severed  them  from  their  country.  The 
one  going  to  the  intellect,  the  other  to  the  heart ;  the  one 
suited  to  the  sex  of  reason  and  action,  the  other  to  the  sex 
of  feeling  and  of  love. 

What !  after  having  abolished  the  absurd  property  qual- 
ification, wherefore  should  we  not  send  to  sit  on  the  legisla- 
tive benches,  by  the  side  of  the  poet  Lamartine,  the  poet 
Beranger,  and  the  poet  Victor  Hugo,  and  the  poet  Alexan- 
der Dumas,  and  Lamenais,  and  Chateaubriand,  who  also  are 
great  poets  ?  And  were  I  to  see  tllfere  a  score  of  celebrities 
in  the  physical  and  natural  sciences,  in  music,  painting, 
sculpture,  and  the  arts  in  general,  I  should  be  rejoiced  at  it 
for  the  honor  of  my  country.  This  brilliant  elite  of  talents 
and  genius,  without  prejudicing  the  fundamental  and  more 
serious  business  of  the  legislature,  would  stipulate  also  for 
the  moral,  intellectual,  scientific,  and  artistic  interests,  which 
are  not  less  precious,  not  less  dear  to  France  than  the  finan- 


256  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

cial  and  material.     That  which  best  represents  France,  is 
that  which  does  her  honor. 

I  know  not  whether  it  be  predilection  for  men  of  mind, 
natural  equity,  or  parliamentary  vanity,  but  assuredly  I 
would  not  exclude  from  the  Chamber,  suppose  it  in  my 
power,  such  adversaries  as  Guizot,  Berryer,  Thiers,  Lamar- 
tine,  Jaubert,  and  other  leading  men,  and  I  am  not,  I  own, 
sufficiently  exclusive,  sufficiently  partisan,  to  be  unwilling 
that  all  opinions  should  be  represented  by  the  superiorities 
of  their  selection,  or  to  hinder  from  shining  in  Parliament, 
with  the  reservation  of  combatting  their  doctrines,  the  illus- 
trious men  of  my  country. 

It  is  also  well — to  return  to  our  poets — it  is  well  that  their 
generous  voice  should  protest  from  the  tribune  against  that 
odious  death  penalty  which  was  the  subject  of  so  much  croc- 
odile weeping  in  certain  high  quarters,  and  which  has  since 
been  forgotten  so  quietly  with  all  the  rest.  It  is  well  that 
they  interpose  between  the  political  parlies  who  assail  each 
other  without  measure  or  mercy,  and  that  they  awaken  some 
pity,  if  not  some  remorse,  in  the  hardened  soul  of  the  issuers 
of  relentless  orders,  the  creators  of  taxes  which  devour  the 
poor  people,  the  slayers  of  men  after  the  third  citation. 
Such  is  my  conception  of  the  mission  of  the  parliamentary 
poet,  and  a  beautiful  mission  it  is,  and  you  are,  Lamartine, 
quite  worthy  to  fulfil  it ! 

Console  yourself  if  you  are  not  as  great  a  politician,  as 
good  a  logician  as  your  flatterers  tell  you,  as  you  think  you 
are  yourself,  and  as  you  would  be  wretched  to  believe  that 
others  did  not  think  you.  Console  yourself,  for  poets  are  they 
not  always  in  need  of  consolation  ?  If  you  had  not  your  de- 
fects, you  would  not  have  your  qualities ;  if  you  were  not 
changeable,  you  would  not  be  impressionable  ;  if  you  were  not 
impressionable,  you  would  not  be  poet ;  if  you  did  not  emit 
harmonious  sounds,  you  would  not  be  a  lyre  ;  if  you  had 
the  precision  of  prose,  you  would  not  have  the  cadence  of 
verse ;  if  you  had  the  logic  of  reasoning,  you  would  not 
have  the  exquisite  vagueness  of  sensibility  ;  if  you  had  the 


LAMARTINE.  257 

purity  of  outline,  you  would  not  have  the  richness  of  color- 
ing; if  you  knew  the  language  of  business,  you  would  not 
know  the  lano:uao;e  of  ant^els  ! 

Yes,  Lamartine,  console  yourself  for  not  being,  as  some 
pretend,  the  first  of  our  statesmen,  and  as  I  would  be  almost 
tempted  myself  to  believe,  seeing  that  this  would  be  no  great 
matter.  Your  lot  is  sufficiently  fortunate,  and  for  my  part, 
I  would  prefer  four  or  five  of  your  strophes  to  the  whole  pile 
of  their  parliamentary  harangues,  your  own  included.  You 
will  live,  illustrious  poet,  when  the  actual  leaders  of  oratory 
will  be  forgotten,  they  and  their  works,  and  when  perhaps 
two  or  three  names  will  float  down  the  stream  of  time,  the 
sole  survivors  from  the  vast  wreck  of  our  ephemeral  govern- 
ments. You  will  live,  and  our  children's  children,  in 
musing  at  the  mid  hour  of  a  beautiful  night,  will  love  to 
recite  these  stanzas  which  fall  with  all  the  grace  and  the 
softness  of  the  snow-flake. 

Doux  reflet  d'  un  globe  de  flamme, 

Charmant  rayon,  que  me  veux-tu? 
Viens-tu  dans  mon  sein  abattu, 

Porter  la  lumiere  a  mon  kmel 

Descends-tu  pour  me  reveler 

Des  mondes  le  divin  mystere, 
Ces  secrets  caches  dans  la  sphere  • 

Oil  le  jour  va  te  rappelerl 

Una  secrete  intelligence 

T'adrcsse-t-elle  aux  malheureux  1 
Viens-tu,  la  nuit,  brillcr  sur  eux 

Comme  un  rayon  de  I'esperence  1 

Viens-tu  devoiler  I'avenir 
»  Au  coeur  fatigue  qui  t'  implore*? 

Rayon  divin,  cs-tu  1'  aurore 
Du  jour  qui  ne  doit  pas  finirl 

Mon  coeur  a  ta  clarte  s'  enflamme, 

Je  sens  dcs  transports  inconnus ; 
Je  songe  a  ceux  qui  ne  sont  plus — 

Douce  lumiere,  es-tu  leur  amel* 

*  I  deemed  it  proper  to  present  this  poem  in  the  original,  the  beauties, 
for  which  especially  it  is  commended  by  our  author,  being  of  those  which 

22* 


258  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

This  is  the  place  to  say  that  M.  de  Lamartine  is  tall,  hag 
blue  eyes,  the  foreiiead  narrow  and  prominent,  the  lips  thin, 
the  features  aristocratic  and  regular,  the  port  elegant,  the 
gestures  noble  and  a  sort  of  stateliness  a  little  stiff  of  the 
grand  seigneur.  The  women,  charmed  with  his  sentimental 
melodies  wliicli  touch  so  well  their  souls,  lookout  but  for  him 
amid  Ihe  multitude  of  the  deputies,  and  ask  each  other : 
Where  is  he  ? 

Where  is  he  ?  Happily  it  is  not  in  the  clouds  of  the  So- 
cialist party.     He  has  slipped  down  from  it  by  more  than 

elude  even  the  best  translation.  Now,  however,  with  (he  proof-sheets 
before  nie,  and  the  messenger  waiting,  I  am  tempted,  for  the  use  of 
the  popular  reader,  to  try  a  running  version  of  it,  which  shall  pretend 
to  give  no  more  than  the  sense,  the  substance.  For  such  it  has,  La- 
martine being  something  more  than  sound.  His  sentiments  are  always 
natural  and  noble:  so  unlike  the  epileptic  sontimentalism  introduced  by 
Wordsworth,  who  succeeded  in  erecting  a  school  of  poclnj  (forsooth  !) 
upon  the  poetic  and  intellectual  imbecility  of  the  age — contorsion  beinj{ 
much  more  imitabb  and  general  than  grace. 

Mild  image  of  a  globe  of  flame. 

Fair  orb  of  night,  what  would'st  with  mo'? 

Or  send'st  thou  to  this  breast  thy  beam 
To  light  its  depths  of  misery  *? 

Descend'st  thou,  to  my  soul  to  bear 

The  mysteries  high  of  worlds  above, 
Those  secrets  hidden  in  the  sphere 

Where  day  will  soon  thy  light  remove  1 

Some  secret  sorrow  thou  hast  known 
Does't  lead  thee  on  thy  heavenly  way  1 

Come'st  thou,  by  night,  to  beam  upon 
The  unhappy  with  Hope's  cheering  ray  1 

Shew'st  thou  the  future's  veil  undrawn 

To  wearied  hearts  who  thee  implore  1 
Oh  ray  divine,  art  thou  the  dawn 

Of  the  bright  day  that  ends  no  more'? 

My  heart  enkindles  at  thy  beam, 

I  transports  feel  before  unknown, 
I  muse  on  those  now  but  a  dream — 

Sweet  orb,  art  thou  their  spirit's  tlirone  1 — Tr's  N. 


LAMARTINR.  259 

half  his  body.  He  lias  furled  his  wings,  he  has  alighted  on 
the  earth,  and  deigned  to  mingle  with  his  brother  mortals. 

As  orator — for  I  have  to  consider  him  under  this  second 
aspect — M.  de  Lamartine  has  been  rising  from  year  to  year, 
and  is  at  present  in  full  possession  of  parliamentary  glory. 
lie  possesses  a  happy  and  lively  turn  of  imagination,  a 
memory  capacious,  simple  and  fresii,  which  retains  and  ren- 
ders promptly  whatever  has  been  committed  to  it,  which  is 
not  disconcerted  by  interruption,  is  always  self-possessed 
and  follows,  without  missing  the  way,  the  uncertain  thread 
of  a  thousand  windings — a  rare  and  wonderful  faculty  of 
appropriating  to  himself  tlie  ideas  of  others  which  has  per- 
haps not  its  like  in  the  Assembly — a  perception  distinct  and 
vivid  of  the  difiicultics  of  each  subject — a  richness  of  color- 
ing, which  is  bespread  in  the  shape  of  flowers,  waves,  golden 
clouds,  over  all  his  speeches — a  fine  development  of  well- 
connected  phrases — an  improvisation  free  and  well  sustained 
— a  power  of  pointed  reply,  a  cadence,  a  volume,  a  harmony, 
an  abundance  of  images,  sounds,  movements  wiiicli  fill, 
without  fati<iuin^  the  ear,  and  bear  so  close  a  resemblance 
to  the  loftiest  eloquence,  that  it  might  well  be  mistaken  for 
something  of  the  kind. 

For  me  who  prefer,  in  Parliament,  I  must  say,  argument 
to  oratory,  logic  to  imagination,  the  language  of  affairs  to 
that  of  the  muses,  I  would  be  more  alFected  by  a  masculine 
and  nervous  discourse,  than  with  these  melodious  and  roseate 
embellishments  of  style.  But  I  must  agree  too  that  this 
pomp  of  language  wiiich  would  in  others  be  elaboration, 
affectation,  empty  rhetoric,  is  entirely  natural  in  Lamartine. 
He  extemporizes  as  he  sings.  It  is  pure  lyrical  effusion, 
fresh  from  the  fountain,  without  adulteration  and  without 
effort . 

I  like  his  balanced  and  rhytiimical  phraseology,  though 
it  be  more  fit  to  deliver  the  oracles  of  Apollo  than  to  express 
the  passions  of  the  Forum.  I  like  it  because  it  rolls  along 
the  slime  of  the  river  with  a  sort  of  sweet  and  plaintive  la- 
menlings,  like  the  scattered  limbs  of  Orpheus.     I  like  it  be- 


2G0  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

cause  if  it  is  not  the  prose  of  oratory,  that  grand  and  beau- 
tiful prose  which  1  can  nowhere  find,  it  is  at  least  the  prose 
of  poetry.  There  is  wanting  but  the  rhyme,  and  to  relieve 
us  from  the  provincial  patois- of  our  parliamentary  honora- 
bles,  much  do  I  desire  that  the  poet  legislator  should  address 
us  occasionally  in  verse.  Take  up  thy  lyre,  O  Lamartine  ! 
for  my  ear  is  still  full  of  the  gravel  of  their  jargon.  For 
God's  sake,  verses,  verses  ! 

Less  an  orator  than  a  poet,  less  a  statesman  than  an  ora- 
tor, I  have  now  to  view  him  in  this  third  and  last  quality. 

M.  de  Lamartine  is  too  much  under  the  dominion  of  his 
imagination,  which  leads  him  back  and  forth  through  the 
labyrinths  of  a  thousand  systems.  We  know  pretty  nearly 
what  it  is  he  does  not  wish.  Thus,  he  does  not  wish  Legiti- 
macy, nor  the  Empire,  nor  the  Republic,  nor  the  aristocracy, 
nor  the  Camarilla ;  but  what  he  does  wish  it  is  not  so  easy 
to  ascertain.  Here  is,  at  any  rate,  his  principle,  and  com- 
prehend it  who  can  :  It  is  "  The  organic  and  progressive  con- 
stitution of  the  entire  democracy,  the  diiTusive  principle  of 
mutual  charity  and  social  fraternity,  organized  and  applied 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  interests  of  the  masses." 

Verily,  for  the  audacious  temerities  of  this  new  Charter, 
M.  de  Lamartine  needs  not  dread  incurring  the  application 
of  the  September  laws  (against  libellous  and  treasonable 
writings,)  not  being  summoned  by  M.  the  Attorney-general 
of  the  King,  before  M.  the  Judge  of  instruction,  sitting  in 
his  chambers  at  the  Hall  of  Justice. 

But  if,  to  put  in  practice  these  grand  and  misty  theories, 
M.  de  liamartine  coveted  as  he  does  covet,  a  high  post  in 
the  executive  authority,  I  know  him  better  than  he  knows 
himself,  and  would  lay  a  wager  that,  before  the  end  of  three 
months  as  ambassador  or  minister,  he  would  be  thoroughly 
disgusted,  and  sigh  for  a  return  to  his  wandering  and  be- 
loved independence.     The  poet-man  is  thus  constituted  ! 

For  the  sake  of  his  own  fame,  of  his  peace,  of  the  affec- 
tion of  his  friends,  it  is  to  be  wished  that  M.  de  Lamartine 
may  be  neither  minister  nor  ambassador.     He  does  not  know 


AMARTINE.  261 

the  masters  and  the  footmen,  the  high  profligates  and  the 
low  profligates  with  whom  he  would  be  under  the  necessity 
of  mixing  and  living.  He  does  not  know  to  what  they  can 
descend  in  their  professions.  He  does  not  know  what  they 
can  dare  in  their  fears.  He  does  not  know  how  often  their 
touch  has  already  polluted  pure  and  innocent  and  elevated 
reputations.  He  is  not  made  to  be  their  dupe.  Still  less  is 
he  made  to  be  their  accomplice. 

The  interested  caressings  of  power,  these  transports  of  a 
poetic  imagination,  these  tactics  of  poetry,  these  inconsisten- 
cies of  doctrine,  these  aberrations  of  logic,  can  never  per- 
vert the  fundamentally  excellent  character  of  Lamartine. 
By  instinct,  by  sentiment,  he  is  generous,  charitable,  de- 
voted to  the  people,  impatient  of  the  theories  and  conduct  of 
the  humanitarians,  ready  at  all  times  to  say  and  to  do  what- 
ever is  useful,  elevated,  and  national ;  independent  and 
courageous  in  his  opinions,  sometimes  even  on  the  border 
of  being  radical ;  in  fine,  without  a  particle  of  gall  upon 
those  lips,  with  the  simplicity  of  the  poet  and  an  honesty  of 
heart  which  has  something  in  it  of  virginal. 

No,  whatever  may  have  been  too  often  the  error  of  your 
politics,  of  your  vote,  and  of  your  speeches,  no,  Lamartine, 
you  cannot  hate  liberty,  for  yours  is  a  noble  soul !  No, 
you  are  not  so  unhappy  as  to  believe  that  government  can 
with  impunity  be  unjust,  violent,  and  corrupt;  that  hu- 
man affairs  are  controlled  by  hard  and  blind  necessity  ;  that 
the  sanction  of  a  principle  resides  but  in  its  triumph,  and 
that  revolutions  purchased  with  the  blood  of  the  citizens 
ought  to  lead  to  no  other  lesson  and  no  other  consummation, 
than  the  cowardly  oppression  of  the  people. 

Shame  upon  those  doctrines,  and  I  love  to  believe,  La- 
martine, and  do  believe  from  my  heart,  that  you  do  not 
share  them,  that  you  shudder  at  them,  that  you  loathe  them, 
and  that  you  would  repeat  with  us,  shame  upon  those  doc- 
trines !  for,  as  you  know,  we  are  not  of  those  who  pass 
from  camp  to  camp,  according  to  the  caprices  of  victory. 
We  plant  our  banner  on  the  broad  ground  of  country.    We 


262  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

« 

wish  liberty,  not  in  phrases  but  in  things ;  not  in  the  lies  of  a 
Charter,  but  in  the  realities  of  political  life  ;  not  in  the  privi- 
leges of  some,  but  in  the  equality  of  all.  We  cannot  believe 
that  truth  is  condemned  to  covenant  with  error,  that  the  eter- 
nal laws  of  justice  and  morality  have  ceased  to  govern  the 
world,  that  principles  are  reduced  to  beg  favors  from  neces- 
sity, that  the  insolence  of  the  fact  ought  to  prevail  over  the 
right,  or  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  people  can  pass  away. 


y  D  ^  ©  TT. 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  263 


GUIZOT. 


M.  GuizoT  is  of  a  low  and  slender  figure,  but  nis  aspect 
is  expressive,  the  eye  fine,  and  his  gaze  is  singularly  full  of 
fire.  In  his  gesture  and  mien  there  is  something  severe 
and  pedantic,  as  you  see  in  all  professors,  and  especially 
those  of  the  Doctrinarian  sect,  the  sect,  that  is,  of  pride. 
His  voice  is  full,  sonorous  and  affirmative ;  it  does  not  obey 
flexibly  the  varying  emotions  of  the  soul,  but  it  rarely  fails 
of  being  clear  and  audible.  He  wears  an  exterior  of  re- 
markable austerity,  and  everything  about  him  is  grave, 
even  to  his  smile.  This  severity  of  manners,  of  deport- 
ment, of  maxims,  of  language  is  by  no  means  displeasing, 
particularly  to  foreigners  ;  perhaps  because  of  its  contrast 
with  the  levity  of  the  French  character. 

He  is  a  pedagogue  in  his  chair,  with  whom  the  ferrule  is 
ever  peering  from  under  his  robe.  He  is  a  Calvinist  in  his 
pulpit,  cold,  sententious,  morose,  who  inculcates  the  fear 
rather  than  the  love  of  God. 

M.  Guizot  is  accomplished  in  literature,  a  distinguished 
historian,  and  holds  the  highest  place  among  the  publicists 
of  the  English  school.  He  is  particularly  well-versed  in 
the  languages  ancient  and  modern.  He  has  not  the  impos- 
ing manner  of  M.  Royer-CoUard ;  but  he  has  a  greater 
abundance  of  ideas ;  he  is  more  comprehensive,  more 
practical,  more  positive.  You  perceive  at  once  that  he  has 
mingled  more  in  the  management  of  men's  affairs. 

Like  all  the  preachers  of  the  Genevese  school,  of  that 
school  characterized  by  its  acrimony  and  harshness,  he  pro- 
ceeds, in  method  as  in  manner,  dogmatically.  He  neglects 
the  ornaments  of  diction.     He  lacks  variety    imagination 


264  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

and  liveliness,  but  not  energy.  His  passion  discovers  itself 
in  the  brilliancy  of  his  eyes  and  transpires  upon  the  marbly 
paleness  of  his  countenance,  which  it  colors  and  tints  of  a 
sudden.  But  it  is  absorbed  as  quickly,  and  is  in  general 
more  concentrated  than  exterior.  He  looks  the  Opposition  in 
the  face  with  front  erect.  He  points  at  them  with  a  haughty 
gesture,  and  hurls  against  them  those  pregnant  sarcasms 
which  leave  rankling  in  the  wound  their  venomous  darts. 

M.  Guizot  treats  political  questions  from  a  certain  ele- 
vated point  of  view.  It  was  the  manner  of  his  master, 
M.  Royer-Collard.  He  selects  an  idea,  formulizes  it  into 
an  axiom,  and  erects  around  this  axiom  the  scaffolding  of 
his  reasonings.  He  reverts  to  it  incessantly ;  he  makes 
this  idea  the  sole  object  of  view,  he  draws  to  it,  he  rivets 
upon  it,  the  spectator's  attention.  His  oration  is  but  the 
development  of  a  theme.  If  the  idea  be  true,  the  whole 
discourse  is  true ;  if  the  idea  be  false,  the  whole  discourse 
is  false.  But  the  deputies  of  the  partisan  majority  to  whom 
he  addresses  himself  never  allow  that  the  thesis  is  false, 
and  so  M.  Guizot  retains  in  their  estimation  all  the  advan- 
tages of  his  method. 

These  advantages  are  considerable  in  deliberative  assem- 
blies.  For  it  is  not  with  a  multiplicity  of  ideas  that  you 
can  best  sway  an  auditory  more  or  less  inattentive,  but 
with  a  simple  idea,  skilfully  chosen;  elaborated,  dogmatized 
and  presented  under  all  possible  forms.  Accordingly  this 
is  the  usual  method  of  professors,  and  we  must  not  forget 
that  M.  Guizot  and  Royer-Collard  have  filled  the  professorial 
chair.  A  professor  who  should  not  repeat  himself,  would 
not  be  understood ;  no  more  would  he  be  comprehended, 
were  he  to  formulize  before  his  auditors  a  long  string  of 
axioms,  for  their  attention  would  thus  be  distracted.  The 
professors  then  from  necessity  all  embrace  this  method  ; 
they  carry  it  with  them,  through  instinct  and  habit,  from 
the  chair  to  the  tribune. 

M.  Guizot  speaks  at  inordinate  length,  like  all  professors; 
he  argues  scholastically  in  the  manner  of  the  theologians. 


GUI  z  OT.  2G5 

He  is  monotonous  like  the  former,  opinionative  like  the 
latter.  He  loves  to  deal  in  abstractions,  and  does  not 
scruple  the  employment  of  equivocal  terms,  such  as  "  mid- 
dle classes,"  "  quasi-legitimacy,"  "  legal  country,"  "  armed 
peace  ;"  and  when  he  falls  upon  one  of  these  formulas,  he 
fastens  upon  it,  drops  the  fact,  loses  sight  of  land  and  soars 
into  the  region  of  generalities,  where  it  happens  to  him  not 
unoften  to  dissolve  away  and  evaporate. 

M.  Guizot  would  have  acted  excellently  the  part  of  high 
priest  of  the  Druids,  in  the  sacred  groves  of  our  ancestors. 
He  would  have  perfectly  intoned  in  Celtic  hemistiches  their 
enigmatical  oracles.  His  respectful  disciples  would  not 
dare,  at  that  day,  to  penetrate  the  tabernacle  of  his  genius. 
They  would  have  to  prostrate  themselves  aloof,  and  adore 
him  at  a  distance. 

M.  Guizot  is  fond  of  abstract  theory  in  politics  and 
philosophy.  But  as  he  has  not  sensibility  of  soul  enough 
to  believe  vividly,  nor  logic  enough  in  the  intellect  to  deduce 
rigorously,  he  but  too  often  leaves  the  question  at  the  point 
where  he  took  it  up,  without  having  carried  it  a  step 
bevond. 

His  Eclectic  doctrines  beset  him,  overmaster  and  bufllt 
him  on  every  side  with  their  changing  billows.  He  spreads 
his  sail  to  the  four  winds  ;  and  it  must  be  that  he  raises 
some  terrible  tempests  in  his  mind.  In  politics,  he  is  a 
believer  neither  in  the  legitimacy  of  the  right  divine,  nor 
in  the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  In  religion,  he  is  neither 
Jew,  nor  Mahomedan,  nor  Protestant,  nor  Catholic,  nor 
Atheist.  In  philosophy,  he  is  neither  for  Des  Cartes,  nor 
for  Aristotle,  nor  for  Kant,  nor  for  Voltaire.  Is  he  e  pro- 
fessor of  religion  however  ?  Yes,  but  of  what  creed  and 
worship  1  Is  he  a  Deist  ?  How  shall  I  tell  you  ?  I  know 
nothing  of  the  matter — and  he  himself,  does  he  know  more  ? 
Is  he  a  philosopher  1  Yes,  but  of  what  sect  ?  Is  he  a  liberal  ? 
Yes,  but  of  what  party  ?  No  matter,  he  will  set  himself, 
by  a  mere  play  upon  logical  forms,  in  all  these  things  to 
amalgamate  the  contraries.     Thus,  will  he  blend  the  purity 

23 


266  REVOLUTION      OF      JULV. 

of  democratic  principles  \\ith  the  corruptions  of  his  mon- 
archy. He  would  have  the  two  adverse  religions,  not  only 
tolerate  one  another  in  the  matter  of  their  co-existence,  but 
farther  accommodate  each  other  in  the  matter  of  their 
mysteries,  and  make  their  Easter  communions  together  at 
the  same  altar. 

His  admirers,  amid  the  darkness  wherein  M.  Guizot  has 
enveloped  them,  feel  but  a  void,  grasp  but  shadows  without 
flesh  or  bone,  and  yet  you  hear  them  cry  :  We  hold  them  ! 
You  hold  what  ?  truths  !  I  defy  you  to  bring  them  forth  from 
the  clouds  of  your  phrases  and  show  them  in  open  day. 

Alas  !  for  twenty  years  back,  your  disastrous,  your  fatal 
school  of  Eclecticism  has  swayed  our  youth,  of  whom  it  has 
depraved  the  generous  instincts,  of  whom  confused  the 
sprightly  and  pure  intelligence.  Look  around  you  !  That 
school  has  produced  but  sophisticated  understandings,  but 
hearts  without  faith,  without  fire,  without  patriotism,  hearts 
which  the  nobler  sentiments  have  never  expanded,  which  the 
thirst  of  selfish  and  brutal  pleasures  consumes,  which  the 
anguish  of  doubt  is  wasting  away,  hearts  extinct,  dying, 
dead ! 

Ah  !  I  can  overlook  M.  Guizot's  faults  of  statesmanship. 
In  the  space  of  three  days,  a  government,  a  dynasty,  a  con- 
stitution may  be  overthrown,  as  M.  Guizot,  the  conservative, 
who  has  overthrown  them,  knows  better  than  I  do :  a  less 
time  than  this  were  sufficient  to  repair  a  ten  years'  career 
of  error  and  shame. 

But  this  moral  and  systematic  poisoning  of  the  soul,  this 
perversion  of  the  lettered  generations,  this  hideous  leprosy, 
this  intellectual  gangrene,  this  distemper  never  known  to 
our  fathers  and  which  will  bow  the  degenerate  impotence  of 
our  children  beneath  the  sword  of  some  usurping  despot — 
this  malady,  who  will  cure  it  ?  Is  it  your  disciples  nipped 
with  a  precocious  and  lingering  consumption  who  could  be 
adequate  to  the  manly  struggles  of  liberty  ?  Is  it  those  in- 
tellects petrified  by  your  doctrines  who  could  be  expected  to 
advance  boldly    in    the    progressive   march  of  the   human 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  267 

• 

mind  ?  Is  it  those  enervated  arms,  those  dastard  spirits  who 
could  serve  for  bulwarks  to  our  independence,  or  even  for 
instruments  to  a  glorious  despotism  ?  And  yet  you  are  aston- 
ished that  the  priests  endeavor  to  rescue  from  your  guidance 
those  remnants  of  souls  whom  you  have  failed  to  save ! 

Yes,  the  fathers  of  the  modern  school,  with  their  misty 
importations  from  Geneva,  Berlin  and  Scotland,  have  spoiled 
our  philosophy,  our  youth  and  our  language.  If  it  be  the 
fate  of  this  beautiful  French  dialect  to  pass  one  day  into  the 
state  of  a  dead  language,  we  give  notice  to  posterity  that 
Messrs.  Guizot,  Jouffroy,  and  Cousin,  these  three  chiefs  of 
the  public  instruction,  these  three  professors  of  quintessential 
metaphysics,  will  to  them  be  untranslatable,  since  to  us,  their 
contemporaries,  they  are  unintelligible. 

M.  Guizot,  to  express  ideas  which  are  not  ideas,  has  made 
himself  a  language  which  is  not  a  language ;  a  language 
all  inflated  with  false  propositions,  all  bristling  with  barren 
and  indefinite  terms ;  a  language  elaborate  without  profun- 
dity, affirmative  without  certainty,  ratiocinative  without 
logic,  dogmatical  without  conclusion  and  without  proof,  dull 
to  move,  inspissated  with  saliva,  and  which  moistens  scarcely 
the  parched  and  bloodless  lips. 

But  when  M.  Guizot  quits  the  pen  and  mounts  the  tribune, 
his  thought  flows  freely  and  clearly,  without  losing  any- 
thing of  its  breadth  or  its  gravity  ;  it  becomes  colored  without 
being  overcharged  with  ornament ;  it  acquires  body  from 
being  nourished  with  facts  and  examples  ;  it  proportions  it- 
self to  the  common  comprehension  ;  it  developes  itself  and 
advances  in  an  order  at  the  same  time  natural  and  erudite. 

How  are  we  to  explain  this  contrast  in  the  man  and  this 
strange  transformation  of  the  manner  of  thinking  ?  Might 
it  be  that  the  writer,  in  his  cabinet,  is  within  his  own  con- 
trol, that  he  retains  all  his  individualiiy,  that  his  uniformity 
of  thought  is  unbroken  by  external  influences,  whereas  an 
audience  with  its  passions,  its  ideas,  its  language  even,  will 
always  force  itself  upon  the  recognition  and  modify  the  dis- 
course of  the  orator  ? 


268  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

It  is  certain  that  when  once  M.  Guizot  descends  from  his 
cloudy  theories  and  enters  the  region  of  practical  affairs,  he 
is  distinguished  by  a  lucidity  of  idea  and  expression  which 
has  not  been  duly  appreciated.  He  goes  directly  to  the 
point  and  says  only  what  is  necessary,  and  says  that  well. 
As  an  agent  for  the  government,  he  has  been  the  most  re- 
markable of  all  the  agents  we  have  heard  these  twenty  years. 
As  a  minister,  he  has  defended  his  administration  with  more 
precision,  science  and  ability  than  any  other  minister. 

His  elocution,  with-little  of  vehemence  or  coloring,  is  pure 
and  chastened.  He  is  perhaps  the  only  one  of  our  extem"- 
pore  speakers  whose  reported  discourses  are  supportable  in 
print.  The  reason  is  that  he  is  the  most  philological  and 
lettered  amongst  them. 

M.  Guizot  never  surrenders ;  he  is  mailed  all  over,  and 
has  not  a  flaw  in  his  armor  through  which  the  shaft  of  ob- 
jection may  penetrate  and  wound.  But  no  more  is  he  en- 
dued with  those  happy  ebullitions  of  passion,  those  boundings 
of  the  heart,  those  flights  of  imagination,  those  touching 
thoughts,  those  animated  turns  which  flash  forth  from  the 
genuine,  the  great  orator,  which  ravish  himself  beyond  him- 
self, transport  him  by  his  own  emotion  and  transfuse  him 
into  the  souls  and  the  very  vitals  of  the  auditory.  M.  Gui- 
zot is  not  what  is  called  eloquent.  He  has  however  been 
so  once,  when,  in  a  rapture  of  admiration  for  the  Constitu- 
tionalists of  1789,  he  exclaimed  :  "  I  cannot  doubt  that,  in 
their  unknown  abode,  these  noble  spirits  who  have  labored 
so  much  and  honestly  for  the  weal  of  humanity,  must  glow 
with  a  profound  delight  in  beholding  us  steer  clear  to-day 
of  those  shoals  upon  which  so  many  of  their  own  benignant 
and  beautiful  hopes  have  been  wrecked." 

I  believe,  for  my  part,  these  great  souls,  in  their  unknown 
abode,  are  better  employed  than  in  the  enjoyment  of  behold- 
ing France  so  honorably  governed  by  M.  Guizot  and  his 
troop.     But  the  oratorical  movement  was  beautiful. 

M.  Guizot  was  not  less  eloquent,  when  in  the  Coalition 
he  battled  with  impetuous  energy  against  the  murmurs,  the 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  269 

clamors  and  stampings  of  the  two  Centres.  In  proportion 
as  the  storm  rose  in  its  rage,  he  stood  the  firmer,  he  clung 
to  the  tribune  ;  momently  he  grew  paler  and  paler  with  an- 
ger. His  eye  shot  the  flashes  and  the  bolts  of  the  thunder, 
and  environed  by  enemies,  he  attacked  them  like  a  huge 
eagle,  tearing  off  their  flesh  and  plucking  out  their  eyes. 

And  recently,  in  the  debate  upon  Foreign  Affairs,  he  has 
sustained  on  that  boisterous  sea,  with  an  eloquence  that  rose 
with  the  emergency,  the  onset  of  the  furious  and  congre- 
gated lances  of  the  Opposition.  We  have  never  observed 
.  his  elocution  clearer,  his  attitude  more  firm,  his  gesture  more 
noble,  and  his  language  more  assured  and  decisive. 

M.  Guizot  passes  in  the  Opposition  for  being  of  a  cruel 
disposition.  His  flaming  eyes,  his  pallid  aspect,  his  shrivelled 
lips,  give  him  the  appearance  of  an  inquisitor.  He  is  said 
to  be  the  author  of  the  famous  saying  :  "  Show  no  mercy  ;" 
a  frightful  phrase,  if  it  had  indeed  been  uttered  ! 

But  such  is  not  the  fact.  M.  Guizot  gives  me  rather  the 
impression  of  a  sectary  than  a  terrorist.  He  has  more 
audacity  of  head  than  resoluteness  of  heart  and  hand.  The 
profound  esteem,  the  imperturbable  self-complacency,  the 
high  admiration  which  he  entertains  for  himself,  occupy  so 
fully  his  whole  soul  as  to  leave  no  place  in  it  for  any  other 
sentiments.  He  would  plunge  head-foremost  into  the  ocean, 
denying  the  while  that  he  was  drowning  himself,  and  he  be- 
lieves in  his  own  infallibility  with  a  violent  and  desperate 
faith. 

He  resembles  those  angels  of  pride  who  braved  the  wrath 
of  the  living  God,  and  who,  with  wings  reversed,  were  hurled 
into  the  depths  of  the  abyss. 

Wherefore  should  I  not  mention,  in  my  solicitude  to  be 
sincere,  that  IM.  Guizot,  in  his  private  relations,  is  a  man  of 
strict  and  pure  morals,  and  that  he  deserves,  by  the  lofty 
integrity  of  his  life  and  his  sentiments,  the  distinguished 
esteem  of  the  virtuous  1  I  have  witnessed  his  paternal  grief, 
and  I  have  admired  the  serenity  of  his  stoicism.  There  is 
certainly  great  firmness  in  that  soul. 

23* 


270  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

I  do  not  write  here  as  a  party  man,  to  flatter  the  passions 
of  my  friends,  but  as  a  man  of  truth  and  sobriety,  to  pre- 
pare  the  judgment  of  posterity.  Let  the  contemporaries  of 
M.  Guizot,  who  would  roll  him  anew  in  the  mire  of  the  past 
and  who  reproach  him  with  his  early  absolutism,  descend 
themselves  within  their  consciences  and  tell  us  what  their 
opinions  on  the  subject  of  government  were  twenty-six  years 
ago  !  Made  with  entire  truth,  this  would  be  a  curious  con- 
fession. Such  an  one  to-day  a  red-hot  radical  or  a  repub- 
lican would  be  found  swimming  along  with  the  broad  cur- 
rent of  despotism,  at  a  time  when  M.  Guizot  was  meditating,  ^ 
professing,  aye  and  practising  liberty.  He  had  been  an  in- 
structor in  it  to  all  of  us,  because  he  understood  it  much 
more  thoroughly. 

Moreover,  M.  Guizot  is  a  man  himself  to  render  homage 
to  the  sincerity  of  an  adversary.  But  imbued  with  the  an- 
tiquated doctrines  of  the  English  oligarchy,  he  imagines 
his  form  to  be  the  beau-ideal  of  government,  and  persuades 
himself  that  it  is  much  more  favorable  to  progress  than  the 
most  advanced  democracies.  We  wish  him  joy  of  his  no- 
tion. 

The  true  government  for  him,  is  the  aristocratic  form,  the 
aristocracy  of  the  nobility,  which  he  would  like  well  enough 
had  he  been  born  a  noble,  the  aristocracy  of  the  burgess 
class  which  he  desires,  because  he  belongs  to  this  class. 

M.  Guizot  has  a  sort  of  dictatorial  stateliness  which  al- 
ways imposes  both  upon  his  own  party  and  upon  his  adver- 
saries, Legislative  bodies,  and  especially  governing  ma- 
jorities who  need,  when  they  have  none  of  their  own,  that  a 
will  be  formed  for  them,  are  much  taken  with  men  of  de- 
liberation ;  they  love  to  be  led,  and  feel  themselves  dis- 
charged in  this  way  of  the  trouble  of  conducting  themselves. 
M.  Guizot  has  that  peremptory  air  of  disdain  which  does 
not  make  him  amiable  to  the  majority  of  the  Chamber,  but 
which  renders  him  necessary.  Seizing  the  critical  moment, 
he  states  succinctly  the  question  and  challenges  his  op- 
ponents to  the  contest.     This  manoeuvre,  which  throws  the 


GUIZOT.  271 

Opposition  into  the  falsest  of  positions,  the  position  of  de- 
fence, has  always  succeeded  since  he  has  been  minister ; 
and  he  has  had  the  good  fortune,  it  must  be  said,  of  encoun- 
tering, at  the  head  of  the  Opposition  or  the  Third-party, 
men  of  talent  undoubtedly,  but  rather  deficient  in  energy, 
in  determination,  who,  by  eluding  the  question  of  yes  or  no, 
left  him  nearly  all  the  advantage  of  the  offensive. 

We  are  not  to  think,  however,  that  M.  Guizot  is  destitute 
of  dexterity ;  that  stubborn  nature  relaxes  and  becomes 
quite  pliant  upon  occasion.  He  has  kept  his  place  at  the 
head  of  his  party,  less  by  his  superior  knowledge  than  his 
adroitness  at  flattering  two  villainous  infirmities,  fear  and 
pride.  Whenever  he  saw  his  philosophic  generalities  fail 
to  stimulate,  he  frightened  the  Centres  with  the  dangers  to 
their  person  and  especially  to  their  property,  a  thing  which 
they  prize  above  all  else  ;  and  then  when  their  terror  was 
wrought  up  gradually  to  a  bodily  tremor,  he  would  tell  them 
bravely  that  they  had  saved  the  kingdom  by  trampling  un- 
der their  feet  the  hideous  monster  of  anarchy,  that  they  had 
won  the  esteem  of  every  man  of  principle  and  virtue, 
throughout  entire  Europe,  and  that  they  fell  short  very 
little,  if  indeed  anything,  of  being  all,  all  of  them,  heroes — 
which  is  a  very  agreeable  thing,  to  hear  said  of  one's  self. 

Some  have  pretended  that  M.  Guizot  had  a  species  of  po- 
litical courage  ;  whether  it  proceed  from  the  lungs  or  from 
the  larynx,  like  the  voice  of  certain  singers,  he  has,  it  is 
said,  this  courage.  How  can.  I  know,  and  how  should  I 
say  ?  I  have  never  seen  him  put  to  the  test,  eith^  in  the 
tribune  or  through  the  press. 

In  fact,  he  assumes  in  our  pacific  Chambers  the  attitude 
of  a  suppresser  of  Insurrections,  he  and  his  party.  M. 
Guizot  is  not  ignorant,  however,  that  in  those  victories,  the 
odds  have  never  been  less  than  a  hundred  to  one,  and  that, 
moreover,  neither  he,  nor  one  individual  of  his  parliamen- 
tary grenadiers,  has  burned  a  single  priming.  But  he  hopes 
his  co-victors  jnay  have  bad  memories.  He  knows  perfectly 
what  sort  of  people  he  is  addressing.     He  knows  that  by 


272  REVOLTTTION      OT      JULY. 

;  telling  men  of  obscure  origin  that  were  there  to  be  a  new 
revolution,  they  would  be  persecuted,  and  by  thus  assigning 
them  the  importance  of  victims,  he  at  once  flatters  and 
k  frightens  them,  and  that  in  this  way  he  places  them  under 
his  protecting  wing — and  this,  it  must  be  owned,  is  cleverly 
contrived. 

But  much  as  he  may  desire  to  enhance  himself  in  the 
eyes  of  the  majority,  I  am  unwilling  that  he  should  vaunt 
so  loudly  of  the  perils  which  he  has  personally  incurred, 
and  the  violence  which  he  has  undergone  for  its  sake.  The 
electoral  enfeoffment  of  his  college,  one  hundred  thousand 
francs  annual  salary,  with  lodging,  fuelling  and  lighting 
free,  the  grand-cross  of  the  Legion  of  honor,  three  chairs  at 
the  Institute,  the  places  of  minister  of  the  Interior  and  For- 
eign Affairs,  the  presidency  of  the  University  and  the  em- 
bassy to  London,  such  within  eleven  years,  are  the  horrible 
violences  which  M.  Guizot  has  submitted  to  and  the  dangers 
he  has  braved — and  not  a  single  pin-scratch  ! 

Grave  in  his  public  deportment,  pertinacious  of  his  ob- 
ject rather  than  his  means,  ambitious  by  system  and  tem- 
perament, laborious  and  peremptory,  M.  Guizot  possesses 
all  the  qualities  and  all  the  defects  of  a  Doctrinarian  leader. 

Victorious  and  a  minister,  M.  Guizot  does  not  retire  to  the 
voluptuous  pleasures  of  Capua.  He  pursues  you  in  your 
flight,  sets  his  foot  upon  your  head,  and  crushes  you  irre- 
coverably. Vanquished,  and  by  the  Opposition,  he  supplies 
the  deficiency  of  his  numbers  by  the  dexterity  of  his  tac- 
tics. He  calculates  his  forces,  counts  the  days  of  battle. 
He  keeps  a  watchful  eye  upon  his  band,  and  harangues 
them  by  voice  and  gesture,  gives  the  word  and  takes  his  own 
position  on  the  confines  of  the  field,  to  stop  the  deserters  and 
rally  the  wavering.  His  squadron  moves  in  solid  column 
under  this  skilful  and  resolute  chieftan.  It  is  not  numerous, 
but  it  is  composed  rather  of  officers  than  soldiers :  a  troop 
golden-armed,  veteran,  independent,  presumptuous,  furious 
upon  occasion,  supple  in  its  evolutions  and  who  are  ready 
to  work  at  sapping  and  mining,  night  and  day,   until  they 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  273 

deem  the  time  oome  to  erect  the  scalino-. ladders  and  mount 
the  breach.  M.  Guizot's  troopers  must,  every  one,  keep 
constantly  the  knapsack  on  his  back,  and  the  capsule  on  the 
battery,  ready  to  fire,  while  he  himself,  posted  upon  an  ele- 
vation, and  his  spy-glass  directed  in  the  fashion  of  an  em- 
peror, indicates  the  positions  which  are  to  be  seized. 

But  what  is  all  this,  if  it  is  not  war  ?  Accordingly  may  it 
be  truly  said,  that  during  the  eleven  years  that  he  has  been 
in  public  life,  M.  Guizot  has  been  conducting  not  a  govern- 
ment but  a  campaign.  He  has  encamped  power  in  a  for- 
tress bastioned,  serrated,  pierced  with  port-holes,  provided 
with  tvusiy  gendarmes  to  keep  sentinel  on  the  ramparts,  and 
unerring  cannons,  to  fire,  at  any  moment,  upon  any  passer-by. 

He  has  been  wasting  a  powerful  intellect,  extraordinary 
faculties,  a  consummate  experience,  an  unflinching  heart  in 
the  service  of  a  principle  so  false  that  he  would  himself  per- 
mit me  to  say  it  is  false,  but  would  not  permit  me  to  prove 
it  so. 

The  continued  humiliation  of  France,  the  timidity  and 
baseness  of  our  diplomacy,  the  prostitution  of  the  press,  the 
violence  of  our  riots,  the  blood  shed  upon  the  scaffolds,  the 
anarchy  of  opinions,  the  enormity  of  our  standing  army,  the 
excess  of  taxation,  the  disorder  of  the  finances,  the  animos- 
ity of  parties — all  this  does  not  proceed  from  M.  Guizot,  but 
from  his  principle.  True  to  France,  he  might  have  led  her 
by  a  silken  thread.  False  to  her,  he  holds  her  chained  down 
by  a  hundred  iron  cables,  which  she  will  one  day  burst  from 
around  her. 

With  all  that  is  necessary  besides,  for  the  government  of 
a  state,  M.  Guizot  lacks  sensibility  and  genius,  and  he  would 
be  fitter  to  direct  the  senate  of  a  Protestant  republic,  than  to 
lead  the  great  kingdom  of  France. 

I  am  not  clear  whether  it  would  be  better  for  any  ruling 
cabinet  to  have  M.  Guizot's  friendship  than  his  hostility ;  for 
his  alliances  cost  more  dearly  than  his  hatreds.  If  he  con- 
sents to  tow  at  his  chariot-wheels  a  minister  who  falls  into  a 
swoon,  the  latter  must  suffer  himself  to  be  manacled,  and 


274  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

must  follow  him,  his  heart  swollen  with  shame  and  sobs,  in 
the  manner  of  the  kings  vanquished  by  the  Romans.  He 
drags  him  behind  by  his  torn  toga,  and  after  having  covered 
him  with  insulting  mockery,  he  will  deign  perhaps  to  leave 
him  his  crown  and  his  life.  But  what  a  life,  and  what  a 
crown ! 

M.  Guizot  would  be  but  the  chief  of  a  handful  of  secta- 
ries, had  he  planted  his  batteries  only  in  the  halls  of  the 
parliament.  But  he  has  had  the  skill  to  erect  citadels  with- 
out, detached  forts,  from  which  he  sweeps  down  the  scat- 
tered and  disordered  troops  of  the  adversary. 

He  has  sagaciously  perceived,  that  in  a  form  of  govern- 
ment where  it  is  ideas,  not  a  man  or  men,  that  rule,  the  first 
step  to  take  was  to  monopolize  and  secure  the  manufacturers 
of  ideas.  The  ministerial  journals,  even  when  he  is  not 
minister,  are  full  of  the  creatures  of  M.  Guizot,  who,  every 
morning,  chant  his  praises  and  do  his  work.  So  completely 
has  he  taken  possession  of  all  the  avenues  to  the  academy, 
that  there  is  now  no  obtaining  a  place  there  without  his  will 
and  pleasure.  Three- fourths  of  the  sub-prefects,  of  the 
prefects  and  of  the  procurator-generals,  are  Doctrinarians 
prompted  by  him,  and  who  merely  repeat  his  lessons.  All 
the  pedants  in  us  and  in  i  of  Germanic  and  Scythian  v  Eu- 
rope, fall  in  prostrate  ecstasy  before  the  incomprehensible 
profundity  of  his  genius,  and  the  amjiassadors  of  the  Holy 
Alliance,  whose  pqrposes  he  so  well  subserves,  recommend 
him  in  their  secret  notes.  He  has  repeopled  the  Council  of 
State,  he  has  recruited  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  he  has  senti- 
nelled the  wardrobe,  the  anti-chambers,  and  perhaps  the 
kitchens  of  the  Palace,  with  Doctrinarians  of  all  sorts  of 
sex,  in  petticoats,  in  linen  caps,  and  in  epaulets. 

Minister  or  not,  M.  Guizot  reigns  in  the  under  apartments 
of  the  Court,  as  well  as  in  his  lecture-hall.  The  Court  is 
Doctrinarian,  doctrinarian  with  a  very  limited  intelligence, 
I  know  well,  with  a  prolixity  of  weak  and  intemperate 
phraseology,  and  some  poverty — not  of  gold  assuredly,  but 
of  idea. 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  275 

Accordingly,  am  I  far  from  saying  that  M.  Guizot  is  not 
greatly  superior  to  the  Court  in  understanding,  in  character 
and  in  speech.  But  though  the  Pere  Lachese  was  more 
learned  than  Lewis  XIV.,  Lewis  XIV.  was  not  for  this  the 
less  a  Jesuit :  so  from  the  fact  that  the  Court  is  not  a  match  for 
M.  Guizot,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  Court  is  any  the  less 
a  good  and  frank  Doctrinarian,  who  glories  in  the  creed,  and 
has  willed  with  its  master  in  pedagogism,  the  electoral  mo- 
nopoly, a  hereditary  peerage,  the  intimidations  of  Septem- 
ber, the  Disjunction  law,  large  budgets,  doweries,  dotations, 
bastiles,  the  armed  peace  and  other  inventions  and  discove- 
ries legislative  and  governmental,  of  the  same  character 
and  tendency.  So  that  it  may  be  said  that  the  Court  and 
M.  Guizot,  M.  Guizot  and  the  Court  govern  France  in  part- 
nership, and  here  is  the  eleventh  year,  as  we  see,  that  she 
is  so  governed.  M.M.  Casimir-Perier,  Mortier,  Broglie, 
Mole,  Soult  and  Thiers  have  been  first  ministers  of  the  sys- 
tem, but  they  were  not  the  system.  Legitimists,  Third- 
party  ists.  Dynasties,  Anti-dynasties,  vainly  v/ill  they  all  of 
them  together  in  that  Chamber,  bustle  and  busy  themselves  ; 
the  Doctrinarians  will  prevail  with  or  without  office,  unless 
the  Court  change,  or  it  should  be  M.  Guizot. 

It  is  not  with  the  Court  that  I  have  here  to  do :  but  M. 
Guizot  (to  confine  myself  to  him)  how  can  he  have  brought 
himself  to  lend  his  fine  intellect  to  such  vile  purposes  ? 
How  is  it  that  he,  an  honorable  man,  has  not  felt  ill  at  ease 
these  ten  years  back,  amid  that  servile  and  depraved  multi- 
tude ?  He,  who  has  seen  intimately  the  recesses  of  so 
many  false  hearts,  of  so  many  profligate  consciences,  of  so 
many  venal  or  vain-glorious  corruptions,  how  does  he  not 
blush  to  the  eyelids,  for  the  villainous  traffic  he  is  driving  ? 
He  a  Calvinist,  he  persecuted  in  his  ancestors  for  the  free- 
dom of  religious  discussion,  he  born  and  brought  up  in  the 
full  liberty  of  political  discussion,  how  can  he  have  inter- 
dicted to  so  many  manipulators  of  Charters,  of  oaths  and  of 
kings,  the  right  of  examination  ?  How  could  he,  an  advo- 
cate for  abolishing  capital   punishment,   have   proposed  to 


27G  REVULUTION     OF     JULY. 

condemn  political  writers  to  the  punishment,  a  thousand 
times  more  cruel  of  transportation  to  the  uninhabitable  wilds 
of  a  distant  island,  and  beneath  a  tropical  sun  ?  How  can 
he,  who  is  a  man  of  art  as  well  as  of  intellect,  have  come 
to  place  the  material  concerns  of  society,  so  brutal  and 
stupefying,  above  its  moral  interests,  above  the  sacred  love 
of  country  and  liberty,  above  all  those  noble  aspirations 
which  are  the  life,  the  charm  and  the  true  greatness  of 
civilized  nations  ?  God  has  permitted  that  he  should  be  the 
author  of  so  much  evil  in  punishment  of  his  pride. 

M.  Guizot  has  so  indoctrinated  the  "  country  gentlemen" 
in  his  selfish,  perverse,  impious,  anti-christian  maxims ; 
he  has  so  repeatedly  assured  them,  that  they  were  the 
sovereigns  of  science,  of  eloquence  and  of  thought ;  that 
they  were  the  absolute  masters  of  the  soil  and  the  indus- 
trial interests ;  that  all  appertained  to  them  by  right  of 
social  supremacy,  and  that  the  rest  of  the  nation  were  but 
a  horde  of  helots  and  barbarians, — that  the  "  country-gen- 
tlemen" have  ...been  observed  to  conduct  themselves  accor- 
dingly ;  have  plunged  into  all  the  beastly  and  carnal  sen- 
sualities of  materialism ;  have  distributed  amongst  them- 
selves all  the  offices  in  the  National,  in  the  Departmental 
Councils,  in  the  magistracy,  in  the  army,  in  the  legislative 
bodies,  in  the  several  departments  of  administration ;  have 
supported  with  acclamation  the  laws  respecting  electoral 
monopolies,  the  jury,  the  enlistment,  civil  lists  the  most 
monstrous,  doweries,  dotations,  corn-laws,  abuses  of  dukes 
and  princes,  and  in  short  the  squanderings  of  the  public 
money  by  town  and  Court,  and  have  attached  and  tied  down 
the  nation  all  alive  to  a  sort  of  feudal  vassalage,  more  un- 
endurable perhaps  than  the  serfdom  of  the  middle  ages. 

M.  Guizot,  instead  of  following  the  age  in  its  undulations, 
in  its  successive  transformations,  and  in  its  career  of  pro- 
gress, has  determined  to  construct  a  sort  of  fiction, — half 
English,  half  Doctrinarian, — which  should  move  with 
mechanical  uniformity,  and  which  will  pass  away  without 
leaving  a  trace  of  it  behind,  for  it  is  a  work  against  nature. 


GuizoT.  277 

But  at  length,  the  nation,  that  nation  of  thirty-four  mill- 
ions of  freemen,  will  demand  what  all  this  means,  and  will 
compel  its  thoughtless  and  wasteful  stewards  to  render 
their  accounts.  Then  will  be  heard  some  terrible  cracking 
of  that  edifice  Jbuilt  upon  sand  and  buffeted  on  every  side 
by  the  furious  tempest ;  and  the  strife  will  be  who,  in  this 
universal  quaking  of  the  earth,  will  decamp  the  speediest ; 
and  M.  Guizot,  this  pretended  conservatist,  will  perhaps  be 
the  first  to  raise  the  cry  of  sauve  qui  pent. 

M.  Guizot  would  be  but  half  portrayed  unless  he  was 
compared  with  M.  Thiers ;  I  shall  therefore  close  with  their 
parallel. 

M.  Guizot  and  M.  Thiers  are  the  two  most  eminent  men 
that  the  boiling  cauldron  of  July  has  thrown  to  the  surface 
of  political  affairs. 

Born  both  of  them  of  the  press,  they  have  strangled  their 
mother,  on  leaving  their  cradle,  after  sucking  her  breast- 
milk  to  the  blood. 

Both,  like  inquisitors,  have  kindled  the  flames  of  the  Sep- 
tember fire,  around  those  who  exercised  the  privilege  of 
free  thought,  saying  to  them : — Believe  or  burn  ! 

Both  represent  in  the  government,  the  one  the  constitu- 
tional burgess  class  of  legitimacy,  the  other  the  dynastic 
burgess  class  of  the  actual  revolution. 

Both  are  not  bigoted  to  the  person  of  the  king,  and  royal- 
ists unconditionally.  They  are  no  more  for  the  younger 
branch  than  for  the  elder,  or  any  other.  They  are  ac- 
tuated but  by  ambition  of  fortune  or  by  attachment  to  a 
system,  and  would  readily  treat  Louis  Philippe,  be  as- 
sured, the  occasion  offering,  after  the  fashion  in  which  they 
treated  Charles  X. 

Unfortunately  these  ten  years,  unskilful  and  timid  helms- 
men, they  have  done  but  turn  their  little  bark,  in  their  little 
archipelago,  around  the  same  shoals.  They  lurk  in  the 
creeks.     They  do  not  venture  into  the  open  sea. 

France,  in  spite  of  the  obstacles  from  monopoly  and  tax- 
ation, has  moved  of  herself  along  in  a  flourishing  career  of 

24 


278  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

agriculture  and  industry,  and  they  imagine  this  to  be  the 
effect  of  their  policy.  France  counterpoised  Europe  with 
the  influence  of  one  hundred  millions  of  revenue  and  thirty- 
four  millions  of  men,  and  they  imagine  that  they,  Thiers  or 
Guizot,  by  putting  their  little  finger  in  the  scale,  may  in- 
cline the  balance. 

Parliamentary  government  may  be  distinguished  into  the 
bastard  and  the  legitimate.  The  bastard  springs  from  the 
copulation  of  monopoly  and  corruption.  The  legitimate  is 
born  of  the  marriage  of  nationality  and  law.  May  it  please 
Messrs.  Guizot  and  Thiers  to  tell  us  whether  they  are  bas- 
tards or  lawfully-begotten — in  the  order,  of  course  I  mean, 
of  political  filiation  ? 

For  the  rest,  Thiers  and  Guizot  are  almost  complete  op- 
posites  to  each  other,  in  character,  in  opinion  and  in  talent : 
the  one  pliant,  talkative,  familiar,  cunning  and  coaxing ; 
the  other  imperious,  austere  and  pompous.  The  one,  whom 
the  old  reminiscences  of  youth  are  constantly  drawing  in 
their  wake  towards  the  Left ;  the  other,  whom  the  sudden 
impulses  of  legitimism  bear  about  towards  the  Right. 

M.  Guizot,  by  dint  of  learning  and  gravity,  may,  among 
the  nobles  of  diplomacy,  pass  for  an  aristocrat.  M.  Thiers, 
in  spite  of  the  confidence  and  extraordinary  brilliance  of  his 
mind,  will  never  rise,  in  their  eyes,  above  the  rank  of  a 
parvenue. 

The  ambassadors  of  the  Holy  Alliance  will  see  in  M. 
Guizot  the  conservatist,  a  semblance  of  the  legitimist.  In 
M.  Thiers  they  will  always  see  but  the  revolutionist,  even 
when  he  would  sweeten  his  voice,  lower  his  tone,  and  sheathe 
his  talons.  The  aristocracies  are  sisters  like  the  democ- 
racies. Confidences  would  be  committed  to  M.  Mole  and 
M.  de  Broglie  which  would  not  be  vouchsafed  to  M.  Thiers. 
It  would  be  otherwise  under  a  government  truly  national, 
which  derives  its  efficacy  from  principles  not  men.  The 
thing  is  not  without  grounds  in  an  exceptional  government, 
whose  force  proceeds  neither  from  the  people  nor  from  itself. 


GUizoT.  279 

M.  Guizot  is  cautious  in  action,  M.  Thiers  bold  in 
speech. 

M.  Guizot  looks  softly,  and  M.  Thiers  fiercely  at  the 
powers  of  Europe,  who  laugh  at  both  the  one  and  the  other. 

M.  Guizot  places  France  upon  an  easy  couch,  for  fear  of 
rupturing  an  aneurism.  M.  Thiers  would  hurl  her  through 
the  immensity  of  space  like  a  hairy  comet. 

From  the  moment  M.  Guizot  gets  into  power,  you  are 
sure  that  the  press,  great  and  small,  will  be  tracked  like  a 
wild  beast,  into  all  its  dens.  If  M.  Thiers  be  raised  to 
power,  you  are  sure  it  will  break  into  a  universal  mutter- 
ing of  war.  They  are  both  in  our  domestic  and  our  foreign 
affairs,  our  two  good  angels,  the  guardian  angels  of  peace 
and  of  liberty  ! 

M.  Thiers  would  sway  the  press  rather  by  seduction,  M. 
Guizot,  rather  by  terror.  After  all,  what  is  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  such  as  Guizot  and  Thiers  have  made  it?  A 
liberty  of  the  press  which  is  not  allowed  to  discuss  the  prin- 
ciple of  the  government !  Is  not  this  in  truth  a  ludicrous 
liberty  ?  A  potter,  who  is  not  allowed  to  perforate  with  his 
finger  the  pitcher  for  which  he  has  just  tempered  the  clay  f 
What  sort  of  potter  can  such  an  one  be  ?  What  sort  of 
pitcher  ? 

M.  Guizot  the  eclectic,  and  M.  Thiers  the  ratalist,  will 
not  condemn  to  fire  everlasting  a  person  who  should  discuss 
the  attributes  or  the  existence  of  God.  But  they  will  con- 
demn to  the  punishment  of  Salazie  the  man  who  would  dare 
to  discuss  the  king.  It  is  that  God,  the  great  God  of  earth 
and  heaven,  in  their  opinion,  does  not  exist.  But  does  the 
king  exist  ?  These  gentlemen,  the  better  to  assure  them- 
selves of  it,  put  a  hand  upon  their  red  portfolio  and  exclaim : 
The  king  does  exist ! 

M.  Guizot  disserts  by  maxims,  M.  Thiers  by  sallies. 

Guizot,  in  soaring  into  the  gloomy  regions  of  philosophical 
abstraction,  encounters  some  vivid  fleams  of  lieht.  Thiers 
is  better  pleased  not  to  elevate  himself  as  far  as  the  clouds, 


280  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 

than  to  lose  himself  in  their  mist.     He  is  rather  gifted  with 
legs  than  with  wings. 

M.  Guizot  does  not  throw  upon  the  parliamentary  table 
too  many  motions  at  a  time.  M.  Thiers,  on  the  contrary, 
empties  his  dice-box  ;  he  plays  at  hazard,  and  risks  his  all. 

M.  Thiers  is  more  favorable  to  the  popular  sovereignty  ; 
M.  Guizot  to  the  parliamentary.  The  starting  point  of  the 
one  is  the  Revolution  (English)  of  1688,  that  of  the  other, 
the  Revolution  of  1793.  The  one  is  more  of  a  philan- 
thropist, the  other  more  of  a  patriot. 

M.  Guizot  has  more  faith  in  ideas,  M.  Thiers,  in  the 
edge  of  the  sword  ;  M.  Guizot  in  the  resistant  inertness  of 
the  middle  class,  M.  Thiers  in  the  insurrectionary  activity 
of  the  masses. 

M.  Guizot  puts  up  for  chief  of  the  conservatives — con- 
servatives of  what  1  M.  Thiers  for  leader  of  the  progressists ; 
a  new  term,  if  not  a  new  thing. 

M.  Guizot  is  constantly  flattering  the  majority  ;  he  broods 
upon  them  with  his  dark  eye,  lest  they  should  disband,  and 
takes  all  occasions  to  vaunt  the  unswerving  constancy,  the 
firm  union  and  the  heroic  courage  of  the  aforesaid  majority, 
although  he  knows  in  his  heart  what  estimate  to  set  upon 
these  three  matters,  quite  as  well  as  you  or  I.  M.  Thiers, 
if  the  majority  show  impatience  or  disorder,  would  rather 
compel  it  by  an  application  of  the  lash,  and  as  he  prefers  the 
quality  to  the  quantity,  he  casts  his  most  caressing  looks 
towards  the  extremities  of  the  Chamber. 

M.  Guizot  and  M.  Thiers  do  not  treat  their  respective 
majorities  in  the  same  manner  and  with  the  same  air.  May 
I  say  that  the  one  is  more  insolent  to  it,  the  other  more  im- 
pertinent ? 

M.  Guizot  and  M.  Thiers  have  still  two  other  modes  of 
treating  their  majority,  which  are  worth  knowing.  The  one 
sounds  the  tocsin,  beats  the  drum,  and  tolls  the  generale. 
The  other  pricks  the  excitable  fibre  of  self-interest.  It  is 
with  the  support  of  his  salaried  deputies  that  M.  Guizot  ekes 
out  the  number  one-half  more  one,  and,  revolting  to  his 


G  U  I  Z  OT.  *  281 

philosophic  pride  though  it  may  be,  the  most  transcendent 
of  his  arguments  will  always  be,  with  this  majority,  the 
argumenTof  making-the-pot-boil. 

M.  Guizot  is  too  presumptuous  not  to  despise  insult,  and 
M.  Thiers  too  thoughtless  to  bear  it  long  in  memory. 

Out  of  place,  M.  Guizot  avails  himself  of  the  parliamen- 
tary authority  to  compel  the  influence  of  individuals  to  his 
purpose  ;  in  place,  he  avails  himself  of  individual  influence 
to  harass  and  reduce  the  parliamentary  power.  Out  of 
place  or  member  of  the  Opposition,  M.  Thiers  plants  his 
batteries  against  the  minister  on  the  ground  of  internal 
abuses,  and  annoys  him  with  the  small  warfare  of  tripping 
him  up  (crocs-en-janibe  ;)  in  place,  and  minister,  he  transfers 
the  debate  into  the  field  of  Foreign  Relations,  because  he  is 
there  at  liberty  to  act  at  large  and  almost  without  control, 
and  of  being  as  reserved  as  he  pleases. 

M.  Guizot  overcomes  objections  by  his  pertinacity  ;  M. 
Thiers  eludes  them  by  his  suppleness.  He  slips  through 
your  fingers  like  a  slimy  eel ;  you  must  take  him  with  the 
teeth  to  hold  him. 

M.  Guizot  affirms  or  denies  ;  M.  Thiers  says  neither  yes 
nor  no. 

M.  Guizot,  urged,  interrogated,  goaded,  wraps  himself  in 
the  disdain  of  a  dry  and  arrogant  denial,  or  in  the  haughti- 
ness of  his  silence  ;  M,  Thiers  defends  too  tediously,  like  a 
lawyer,  the  minutest  details  of  his  ancient  ministries,  and  as 
other  orators  try  to  imitate  him,  without  having  his  intellect, 
the  legislative  debates  are  apt  to  degenerate  into  driv- 
elling. 

The  one,  more  a  spiritualist,  addicts  himself  rather  to  the 
principle.  The  other,  more  a  materialist,  is  attached  rather 
to  the  facts.  The  one  believes  in  a  sort  of  morality,  the 
other  believes  very  Utile  in  anything. 

M.  Guizot  has  boldness  in  a  conflict  with  persons,  then 
he  is  courageous  through  pride.  But  when  he  has  to  do 
only  with  affairs,  then  his  pride  is  worth  him  nothing.  And 
this  explains  why  he  shows  so  much  resoluteness,  in  the  tri- 

24* 


282  •  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

bune,  against  parliamentary  minorities,  and  so  little  in  the 
cabinet  against  the  insolencies  of  a  foreign  power. 

M.  Thiers  has  reason  to  desire  a  large  army  and  a  stout 
budget,  because  he  has  made  himself  the  advocate  of  mo- 
nopoly,  and  that  a  government  of  monopoly  cannot  dispense 
with  these  expedients.  If  he  had  been  content  to  remain  a 
national  man,  he  might  have  been  able  to  do  with  half  an 
army  and  half  a  budget ;  we  would  thus.be  better  off  and 
he  too.     This  we  say,  and,  be  assured  of  it,  this  he  thinks. 

M.  Guizot,  minister  or  not,  lives  but  in  the  atmosphere 
of  politics.  •  He  has  the  force,  the  resolution,  the  obstinacy, 
the  experience  of  a  man  who  thinks,  every  moment  of  the 
day,  but  upon  the  same  thing.  With  him,  power  is  a  matter 
of  temperament  almost  as  much  a  of  ambition. 

M.  Thiers  does  not  live  exclusively  for  government  and  pol- 
itics. Is  he  displaced  from  the  ministry,  he  turns  artist,  puts  on 
steam,  is  off  to  Naples,  digs  for  mummies  and  writes  histories. 

M.  Guizot's  intellect  has  more  generality  ;  M.  Thiers's 
more  breadth  and  activity. 

M.  Thiers,  like  phosphor,  blazes  and  goes  out.  M.  Gui- 
zot, like  a  tomb-lamp,  sheds  only  a  sombre  light,  but  burns 
forever. 

M.  Guizot  sometimes  takes  obscurity  for  profundity,  and 
big  words  for  great  things.  M.  Thiers,  sometimes  also  takes 
tinsel  for  gold,  and  bluster  for  glory.  ^ 

M.  Guizot  is  always  a  philosopher,  M.  Thiers  is  always 
an  artist.  'The  one  seems  to  imagine  himself  always  lec- 
turing in  his  chair,  the  other  to  think  himself  conversing  in 
a  drawing-room. 

Both  are  perhaps  the  first  journalists  of  their  times.  But 
M.  Guizot  cultivates  rather  the  dogmatism  of  the  press, 
Thiers  rather  its  running  polemics.  The  one  delights  to. 
listen  to  the  sound  of  his  hollow  theories.  The  other  groups 
the  facts  and  occurrences  of  each  day,  around  his  system. 
He  insinuates  himself  by  some  imperceptible  inlets  into  the 
outworks  of  the  Opposition,  and  while  they  are  asleep,  he 
fires  the  cannons. 


G  u  I  z  o  T.  283 

As  a  political  writer,  M.  Guizot  is  better  liked  in  foreign 
countries  than  with  us,  where  the  graces  of  form  are  pre- 
ferred to  the  solidity  of  the  matter,  and  where  the  style 
makes  the  whole  man.  For  the  rest,  it  must  be  allowed 
that  the  laborious  commentators  of  this  publicist,  spend  a 
vast  deal  of  eflbrt  to  divine  his  meaning.  They  succeed 
in  penetrating  him  nearly  as  well  as  we  do  the  Apocalypse. 
Genius,  however,  is  light ;  that  which  is  not  clear  is  not 
French^ 

M.  Thiers,  and  this  will  not  displease  him,  is,  in  his 
histories,  rather  the  statesman  than  the  writer.  He  excels 
neither  in  the  plan,  nor  the  arrangment,  nor  the  coloring, 
nor  the  profundity,  nor  the  concision.  But  he  is  singularly 
remarkable  for  his  high  intelligence  of  events,  the  ability 
of  his  narrative  and  the  perfect  lucidity  of  his  style.  He 
writes  much  as  he  speaks,  with  a  picturesque  abundance 
and  charm. 

No  French  writer  has  equalled  him  in  the  description  of 
battles,  or  the  exposition  of  financial  crises.  He  has  related, 
in  the  history  the  most  popular  and  widely-read  of  our . 
day,  the  great  wars  of  the  Revolution,  its  Assemblies,  its 
constitutions,  its  negotiations  and  its  laws.  It  is  for  him 
now  to  present  us  Napoleon  upon  the  scene  of  the  Consulate 
and  the  Empire,  in  the  garb  he  is  to  wear  to  posterity. 

M.  Thiers,  however,  belongs  to  the  fatalist  school,  to  that 
barren  school  which  excuses  the  faults  and  the  crimes  even 
of  governments  by  the  plea  of  necessity,  which  recognizes 
no  rule  of  right  either  in  the  nation  or  between  nations, 
which  stifles  free  will  and  plunges  virtue  into  despair.  Of 
what  consequence  to  us  would  be  the  history  of  past  facts, 
without  the  moral  significance  of  these  facts  for  the  instruc- 
tion  of  the  present  and  future  generations  ? 

M.  Guizot  has  more  method  in  his  improvisations  and  his 
discourses ;  M.  Thiers  more  freedom  and  natural  ease. 
M.  Guizot  is  the  more  eloquent  in  anger  ;  M.  Thiers  in 
enthusiasm. 

Nothing  can  be  more  grave  than  the  diction  of  M.  Guizot ; 


284  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 


\ 


nothing  more  charming  than  the  sprightly  fluency  of  M. 
Thiers.  At  the  end  of  a  quarter-hour's  speaking,  M.  Gui- 
zot  fatigues  me ;  at  the  end  of  two  hours,  M.  Thiers  inter- 
ests me.  You  feel  no  solicitude  for  M.  Guizot,  because  he 
has  his  theme  prepared,  and  you  know  he  will  not  wander 
from  it  a  hair's-breadth.  You  feel  none  for  M.  Thiers, 
because  you  know  he  will  come  off  happily  from  the  ex- 
cursions the  most  distant,  and  the  passes  the  most  difficult. 

If  the  peril  of  the  situation  be  imminent,  M.  Gurzot  will 
pull  the  selfish  fibres  of  the  burgess  deputy.  In  such  a 
case,  M.  Thiers  will  sound  his  trumpet  and  you  will  see 
him  appear  at  the  extremity  of  the  defile,  a  tri-colored  flag 
in  his  hand.     It  is  Bonaparte  on  the  bridge  of  Areola. 

Both,  to  recapitulate,  will  have  been  found  unequal  to  the 
task  they  have  assumed,  because  they  have  been  unequal 
even  to  their  own  principles,  which  are  not  principles. 
Both,  under  the  official  gilding  of  a  Court  costume,  have 
but  too  often  forg-otten  even  the  sentiment  of  their  own 
dignity.  Both,,  a  pitiful  spectacle!  tear  one  another,  like 
two  dogs,  for  the  bones  of  power,  and  after  this  edifying 
combat,  the  victor  comes  humbly  to  lick  the  feet  of  his 
master. 

Men  of  petty  warfare  and  of  petty  peace,  they  have 
failed  even  to  bring  to  an  end  either  the  Bedouin  skirmish- 
ing of  Algeria,  or  the  abortion  of  their  parliamentary  sove- 
reignty. 

Will  they  say,  they  who  were,  by  their  intrepid  coalition, 
to  drive  back  into  the  palace  kitchens  the  encroachments  of 
despotic  government,  will  they  say  with  the  great  Chatham : 
"  I  have  been  called  to  the  ministry  by  the  voice  of  the 
people,  and  it  is  to  the  people  alone  that  I  owe  an  account 
of  my  actions  ?" 

Will  they  say — they,  responsible  ministers,  who  had 
sworn  to  wear  worthily  the  sceptre  of  the  7th  of  August — 
will  they  say  with  Napoleon,  after  the  battle  of  Austerlitz  : 
*' Frenchmen!  when  you  set  upon  my  head  the  imperial 
crown,  I  made  oath  to  maintain  it  untarnished  in  that  proud 


GUizoT.  285 

effulgence  of  glory  which  alone  could  give  it  value  in  my 
eyes."  Alas  !  alas  !  France,  that  noble  France,  astonished 
to-day  to  find  herself  desolate,  surveys  herself,  seeks  herself, 
interrogates  herself,  and  can  no  more  comprehend  herself 
what  she  is,  or  recognize  herself  what  she  has  been  ! 

Incapable  of  making  her  a  queen,  they  have  made  her  a 
huckstress,  and  after  the  day's  work,  retired  within  the  re- 
cess of  her  shop — she  who  was  wont  to  wield  the  sabre  and 
the  sword — there  she  sits,  occupied  in  counting  her  re- 
ceipts and  piling  up  her  coppers  in  portable  packages  ! 


286  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY. 


M.   THIERS. 

M.  Thiers  has  not  been  dandled,  in  his  infancy,  on  the 
lap  of  a  duchess.  Botn  poor,  he  lacked  a  fortune  ;-/born 
obscure,  he  was.  without  a  name.  Having  failed  at  the  bar, 
he  turned  literateur  and  went  body  and  soul  into  the  liberal 
party,  rather  from  necessity  than  conviction.  There  he 
betook  him  to  admirinor  Danton  and  the  leaders  of  the 
"  Mountain,"  and  carried  to  extravagance  the  calculating 
enthusiasm  of  his  hyperboles.'  Devoured  by  a  thousand 
wants,  like  all  persons  of  vivid  imagination,  he  owed  the 
beginning  of  his  competency  to  M.  Lafitte,  and  his  reputa- 
tion to  his  own  talents.  Meanwhile,  were  it  not  for  the  Rev- 
olution of  1830,  M.  Thiers  would  be  perhaps  to-day  neither 
elector,  nor  eligible,  nor  deputy,  nor  minister,  nor  so  much 
as  Academician  :  he  might  have  grown  gray  in  the  literary 
esteem  of  a  coterie. 

Since,  M.  Thiers  has  changed  his  part :  he  has  become 
author — champion  and  panegyrist  of  dynasties-^supporter 
of  privileges — issuer  and  executor  of  oppressive  ordinances  ; 
he  has  irreparably  attached  his  name  to  the  besiege ment  of 
Paris,  to  the  bombardment  of  Lyons,  to  the  magnificent  ex- 
ploits of  Transnotran  street,  to  the  transportations  of  Mount 
St.  Michael,  and  the  imprisonments,  to  the  laws  against  as- 
sociations, public  hawkers,  courts  of  assize,  and  the  jour- 
nals :  to  all  in  short  which  has  chained  down  liberty,  to  all 
which  has  stigmatized  the  Press,  to  all  which  has  perverted 
the  trial  by  Jury,  to  all  which  has  decimated  the  patriots, 
to  all  which  has  demoralized  the  nation,  to  all  which  has 
trampled  in  the  dust  the  pure  and  generous  Revolution  of 
July. 


[^  ^ 


,  "■!  'J 


M.     THIERS.  287 


% 


His  friends — Dupont  de  I'Eure,  Carrel,  Lafitte— rhe  has 
deserted  ;  his  liberal  principles  he  has  repudiated  ;  he  began 
by  serving  the  dynasty  as  tool  of  all  work,  one  of  those  in- 
struments which  bow  but  never  break,  which  will  bend  to 
the  contact  of  both  ends,  and  fly  back — so  supple  are  they  I 
— with  the  resilience  of  an  arrow. 

Doubtles  your  aristocratical  ministers  are  more  courteous 
in  speech ;  but  they  are  more  obstinate  in  character.  They 
are  more  expert  at  bowing  with  grace  the  head  and  spine. 
They  will  stoop  to  the  earth  to  take  up  their 'master's  hat, 
but  they  will  resume  their  upright  posture  with  a  haughty 
brow.  Their  intercourse  with  kings  is  that  of  one  gentleman 
with  another.  They  look  upon  the  place  of  minister  as  be- 
neath them.  Accordingly,  by  instinct  of  domination,  kings 
prefer  to  take  their  ministers  from  among  the  lower  classes 
than  from  the  nobility.  They  know  the  latter  will  serve 
them  but  in  quality  of  servants,  while  the  former  almost  al- 
ways may  be  employed  as  domestics. 

If  then  it  happens  that,  in  a  monarchy,  a  man  of  low 
birth,  but  of  some  talent,  has  received  an  education  more 
literary  than  moral,  and  that,  borne  on  the  arm  of  fortune, 
he  has  crept  to  the  summit  of  power,  his  elevation  will 
speedily  turn  his  head.  As  he  finds  hjmself  isolated  upon 
the  heights  he  has  gained,  and  knows  not  where  to  lean  for 
support — having  neither  personal  nor  family  consideration, 
being  no  longer,  nor  wishing  to  be,  one  of  the  people,  and 
unablej  whatever  he  may  wish  or  do,  to  be  one  of  the  no- 
bility— he  will  place  himself  at  the  feet  of  his  king,  will 
clasp  them,  will  lick  them,  will  be  at  a  loss  to  know  by  what 
contorsions  of  servility,  by  what  caresses  of  supplication, 
by  what  simulations  of  devotedness,  by  what  genuflexions, 
by  what  kiss-foot  cringings  to  manifest  the  abjcctness  of  his 
humility  and  the  prostration  of  his  worship.  The  person- 
ages of  this  description  are  like  the  predestined  ofGhehenna 
who  make  a  compact  with  the  devil.  They  are  marked 
with  his  nail,  and  if  they  but  turn  aside  the  head,  burst  a 
link  of  their  chain,  make  a  single  step,  the  infernal  owner 


288  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

to  whom  their  body  has  been  delivered  and  their  soul  has 
been  sold,  cries  out  to  them  :  "  Stir  not,  thou  art  mine !" 

Run  on,  my  pencil ;  I  have  here  no  need  of  either  nicely 
spread  canvass  or  of  compass,  run  on  at  thy  own  fantasy ! 
I  have  to  paint  M.  Thiers  just  as  he  speaks — less  well,  no 
doubt,  than  he  speaks ;  I  wish  to  sit  to  the  public  as  M. 
Thiers  sits  to  me,  by  commencing  with  the  chin,  ending 
with  the  eyes ;  and,  that  the  portrait  may  be  the  more 
faithful,  to  pass  off  from  the  subject,  cross  and  re-cross  in 
a  thousand  curvatures  of  digression,  then  return,  lose  my 
way,  recover  it,  lose  it  again,  and  make  M.  Thiers  exactly 
after  his  own  image. 

M.  Thiers,  taken  in  detail,  has  a  large  and  intelligent 
forehead,  lively  eyes,  a  smile  delicate  and  intellectual.  But 
in  his  general  aspect,  he  is  chubby,  negligent,  vulgar.  He 
has  in  his  prattle  something  of  the  merchant,  in  his  gait 
something  of  the  apprentice.  His  nasal  voice  rends  the  ear. 
The  front  of  the  tribune  reaches  to  his  shoulder  and  hides 
him  almost  from  the  auditory.  Tt  must  be  added  that  no 
one  puts  any  confidence  in  him,  not  even  he  himself — espe 
cially  himself!  Physical  disadvantages,  distrust  on  the  part 
alike  of  enemies  and  friends,  he  has  everything  against  him ; 
and  yet  as  soon  as  this  little  man  gets  possession  of  the  tri- 
bune, he  ensconces  himself  in  it  so  at  ease,  he  has  such  a 
flow  of  intelligence,  such  a  flow  of  mind,  that  you  allow 
yourself  to  be  carried  away  by  the  pleasure  of  hearing 
him. 

He  droops,  from  habit,  his  head  upon  the  chin,  while 
going  to  the  tribune ;  but  once  mounted  and  speaking,  he 
erects  it  so  well  and  lifts  himself  so  jauntily  a-tiptoe,  that  he 
out-tops  the  whole  assembly. 

Although  he  begins  almost  every  paragraph  of  his  speeches 
with  this  formula  :  Permit  me,  Gentlemen,  or :  /  ask  your 
pardon,  he  very  freely  dispenses  with  the  permission  and 
thinks  himself  far  above  the  pardon  of  any  man.  But  there 
is  so  much  vanity  in  a  French  Chamber  !  You  must  ap- 
pear so  humble  in  addressing  it !     With  this  little  precau- 


M .    THIERS.  289 

tion,  you  may  venture,  and  say,  what  you  please.     It  is  the 
passport  of  nniany  an  impertinence. 

M.  Thiers  cannot  be  said  to  proceed  by  fitful  sallies  like 
Dupin,  nor  to  have  the  impressive  delivery  of  Odil  on- 
Barrot,  nor  the  scoffing  sarcasm  of  Mauguin,  nor  the  billowy 
eloquence  of  Sauzet,  nor  the  superior  reasoning  power  of 
Guizot :  his  talent  is  of  a  peculiar  sort,  and  resembles, 
neither  nearly  nor  remotely,  that  of  any  other  person. 

His  speaking,  I  grant  you,  is  not  oration,  it  is  chat,  but 
chat  at  once  vivid,  brilliant,  airy,  voluble,  lively,  studded 
with  snatches  of  history,  with  anecdotes,  and  keen  reflec- 
tions ;  and  all  this  loquacity  unwinds  its  endless  thread, 
now  cut,  now  broken,  then  tied,  then  loosed,  again  knotted, 
with  an  incomparable  dexterity  of  language.  The  thought 
springs  so  quickly  in  that  head,  so  instantaneously,  that  you 
would  imagine  it  uttered  before  it  had  been  conceived.  The 
vast  lungs  of  a  giant  v/ould  be  insufficient  to  expectorate 
the  flood  of  words  of  this  gifted  pigmy.  Nature,  ever 
attentive  and  compassionate  in  her  compensations,  seems  in 
him  to  have  concentrated  all  the  might  of  manhood  in  the 
fragile  organs  of  the  larynx. 

His  allusions  fly  and  flap  like  the  bat's  wing,  and  pierce 
you  so  quickly  tliat  one  feels  wounded  without  knowing 
whence  proceeded  the  dart.  You  would  find  in  his  dis- 
courses a  thousand  contradictions  to  criticise,  but  he  leaves 
you  neither  place  nor  time  for  it.  He  envelopes  you  in 
the  labyrinth  of  his  argumentations  where  a  thousand  routs 
intersect  each  other  in  all  directions,  and  of  which  he  alono 
holds  the  clue.  He  takes  a  view  entirely  overlooked  of 
the  question,  which  seemed  exhausted,  and  presents  it  in  a 
new  light  by  the  most  ingenious  reasonings.  He  is  never 
found  unprepared  upon  any  subject :  as  prolific,  as  prompt 
in  defence  as  in  attack,  in  reply  as  in  exposition.  I  know 
not  if  his  reply  be  always  the  most  solid,  but  it  is  always 
the  most  specious.  He  stops  sometimes  suddenly  to  retort 
upon  the  interrupters,  and  pops  off  his  repartee  with  an 
adroitness  of  aim  which  completely  stuns  them. 

25 


290  R  E  V  O  l.  U  T  I  O  N      OF      JULY. 

If  a  tlieory  have  several  aspects,  some  false,  some  true, 
he  groups  them,  he  mixes  them,  he  makes  them  play  and 
radiate  before  you  with  a  hand  so  invisibly  agile  that  you 
Jiave  not  time  to  seize  the  sophism  on  its  passage.  I  do  not 
know  whether  the  disorder  of  his  improvisations,  the  incohe- 
rent huddling  of  such  a  mass  of  heterogeneous  propositions, 
the  odd  jumble  of  all  those  ideas  "and  all  those  tones,  be 
design  and  the  effect  of  his  art ;  but  he  is  of  all  orators  the 
most  easily  refuted  when  you  read  him,  the  most  difficult 
to  refute  when  you  only  listen.  He  is  certainly  the  most 
amusing  of  our  political  profligates,  the  sharpest  of  our 
sophists,  the  subtlest  and  most  undetectable  of  our  thimble- 
riggers.     He  is  the  Bosco  of  the  tribune. 

He  is  ever  praying  and  beseeching  that  he  be  allowed  to 
speak  the  truth.  Ah  !  my  God  !  do  not  talk  so  much  about 
your  intention  to  speak  it,  but  speak  it. 

He  is  rash  and  timid  by  turns.  He  now  precipitates 
himself  into  action,  and  then  flinches  and  retires — in  the 
consciousness  of  his  power  if  you  take  his  own  word  for 
it.  He  sees  all  the  points  of  the  difficulty,  but  does  not 
solve  one  of  them.  He  takes  a  globe  between  his  hands — 
the  ballot-urn  would  answer  his  purpose  as  well — and  de- 
livers a  course  of  geography.  He  depresses  the  circles, 
the  equator,  the  solstices.  He  elevates  the  coasts,  sounds 
the  gulfs,  nears  and  signalizes  the  promontories,  the  shoals, 
the  ports,  the  cities,  the  mountains,  the  mouths  of  rivers. 
He  makes  the  circuit  of  the  world,  and  returns  home,  after 
having  seen  much,  talked  much,  travelled  much,  but  walked 
little,  given  much  lecture  but  little  instruction. 

Were  he  to  be  offered  the  command  of  an  army  he  would 
not  refuse  it ;  and  for  my  part,  I  am  by  no  means  sure,  on 
the  faith  of  Timon,  that  he  would  not  gain  the  battle.  I 
vow  to  you  I  have  heard  with  my  own  ears  generals  so 
taken  with  him  as  to  declare  they  would  willingly  serve 
under  his  command. 

You  smile,  but  no,  I  speak  quite  seriously  ;  and  were  he 
only  four  inches  taller  and  had  learned  the  sudden  charge, 


M.     THIERS.  291 

he  might  have  been  "  little  corporal"  and  a  bit  of  a  Napo- 
leon. 

Wake  him  not,  I  pray  you,  from  his  illusion,  when  in 
the  tribune  he  lays  his  plans,  manoeuvers  his  troops,  and 
expatiates  in  his  strategetical  evolutions.  For  then  he 
imagines  himself  really  and  truly  general,  not  alone  of  a 
single  army,  but  generalissimo,  and  in  case  of  need  an 
admiral ;  and  admiral,  too,  so  accomplished,  that  in  order  to 
sail  from  Greece  into  Egypt  he  would  bring  back  the  fleet 
to  Toulon,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  it  within  the  field  of 
his  spy-glass,  in  the  manner  of  Bonaparte.  Another  time, 
he  would  go  direct  to  Soult,  and  tell  him  bravely  that  he 
did  not  go  out  of  Genoa  with  his  army  by  the  French,  but 
by  the  Italian,  gate ;  and  if  Soult  has  been  wounded  at  the 
battle  of  Salamanca,  he  will  maintain,  amidst  the  applause 
of  the  Chamber,  that  it  was  in  the  left  leg  and  not  in  the 
rifjht,  as  Soult  himself  had  thought  hitherto,  and  he  will 
prove  it  so  plausibly  that  the  old  general,  the  better  to 
assure  himself,  will  involuntarily  put  his  finger  in  the  cavity 
of  his  wound. 

Sometimes,  he  turns  to  bewailing  his  own  lot,  and  no  one 
then  Jknows  better  how  to  act  the  victim.  Anon,  he  as- 
sumes the  tone  of  a  misanthropic  Cato,  and  emits  a  deep  and 
doleful  sigh  for  the  perversities  of  opinion.  He  can  also 
play  the  amiable  to  perfection,  and  when  you  think  he  is 
caressing  you,  he  grips  you  like  a  cat.  Ah !  the  little 
traitor  ! 

He  love^  power ;  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  well- 
being  which  it  procures.  While  M.  Guizot  has  its  pride, 
M.  Thiers  has  its  sensualism.  This  comes  of  the  circum- 
stance that,  for  two-thirds  of  his  life,  he  has  been  precluded 
from  the  enjoyments  of  fortune  :  he  now  stuffs  himself  with 
the  voracity  and  selfishness  of  a  starveling. 

M.  Thiers  is  a  demon  of  mind.  He  is  full  of  it,  I  believe, 
to  the  extremities  of  the  lips  and  even  along  to  the  tips  of 
the  nails.  His  organization  resembles  Voltaire's: — frail, 
delicate,  variable,  impressionable. 


292  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

He  has  the  whims  and  frowardness  of  a  child,  with  the 
pretensions  to  gravity  of  a  philosopher. 

He  is  more  a  man  of  letters  than  a  statesman,  more  an 
artist  than  a  man  of  letters.  He  would  passionately  m- 
terest  himself  about  an  Etruscan  vase  ;  very  little,  for  lib- 
erty. He  has  a  statesman's  conception  of  great  designs, 
and  a  woman's  audacity  in  small  things. 

His  courage  is  rather  that  of  nervous  people,  a  sort  of 
feverish  and  fitful  courage,  which  ends  in  convulsions  and 
fainting.  These  weaknesses  are  excusable  only  upon  a  sofa. 
There  should  be  no  swooning  in  politics. 

A  great  orator,  a  wavering  minister,  action  cools  and 
paralyzes  him.  Speaking,  on  the  contrary,  warms  and 
transports  him. 

His  enthusiasm  of  other  days  for  our  revolutionary  heroes 
was  but  the  enthusiasm  of  a  school-boy,  with  which  was 
mixed,  unconsciously  to  him,  the  spite  of  being  nobody  then, 
together  with  the  vague  hope  of  becoming  one  day  a  per- 
sonage. But  tlie  abuse  of  the  ministerial  luxuries  soon 
effeminated  his  temperament,  and  he  descended  four  by  four 
the  stair-steps  from  the  garret  to  the  drawing-room,  install- 
mg  himself,  on  the  beautiful  gold-fringed  ottomans,  just  as  if 
he  had  never  sat  upon  his  pallet  of  straw ;  a  gentleman  by 
instinct,  as  others  are  by  birth  and  habit. 

Minister  or  not,  in  France  or  out  of  it,  this  ostentatious 
taste  never  quits  him,  In  the  meantime,  he  might  perhaps 
abstain  from  publishing  and  posting  up  his  movements  to 
the  whole  world,  when  he  travels  in  quality  of  a  private 
man,  for  his  own  pleasure  or  for  ours.  Good  taste  requires 
that  announcements  of  this  sort  should  be  left  to  the  exhib- 
itors of  wild  beasts,  to  play-actors,  and  princesses. 

Formerly,  the  mayors  and  provosts  used  to  present  to  the 
Dukes  of  Montbazon  and  Montmorency  the  keys  of  the  cities 
on  plates  of  gold.  In  our  day,  vessels  are  freighted,  can- 
nons jfired,  telegraphs  worked  for  the  Montbazons  of  the 
desk  and  the  Montmorencys  of  the  attorney's  office.  There 
is  wanting  to  the  resemblance  but  that  they  be  attended  by 


M.THIERS.  293 

a  retinue  of  squires  with  falcons  on  their  fists,  of  gentlemen- 
of-honor  and  pages. 

A  sceptic  from  mere  heedlessness,  in  morals,  in  religion, 
in  politics,  in  literature,  there  are  no  truths  which  take  deep 
hold  on  M.' Thiers,  no  sincere  and  thorough  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  the  people  which  does  not  provoke  his  laughter. 
He  resembles  a  lustrous  silk  which  ever  varies  its  hue  and 
reflects  to  the  sunliglU  all  sorts  of  colors,  without  having 
any  of  its  own,  and  through  whose  loose  tissue  you  may  see 
the  iicrht. 

Ask  him  not  for  firm  convictions,  he  cannot  form  any  ; 
for  evidences  of  virility,  his  temperament  is  incapable  of  it. 
You  dislike  his  bantering,  but  what,  if  all  things  appear  to 
him  laughable  !  You  complain  that  he  ridicules  you,  but  he 
ridicules  himself  as  well  ! 

Intrust  him,  if  you  please,  with  the  ministry  of  the  Ma- 
rine, of  War,  of  the  Interior,  of  Justice,  of  Foreign  Affairs  ; 
but  take  care  how  you  place  at  his  disposal  millions  and 
especially  hundreds  of  millions,  for  they  would  pass  like 
water  through  the  riddle  of  his  fingers.  To  this  facility  of 
his  of  squandering  money,  he  joins  a  certain  mode  of  ac- 
compting  for  it,  which  is  not  that  of  all  the  world,  and  this 
he  calls,  quite  ingeniously,  the  art  of  grouping  figures. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  gauge  exactly  the  capacity  of  his 
political  appetite.  This  only  can  be  affirmed,  that  he  has 
been,  and  would  be  again  a  thousand  times  more,  in  case 
of  opportunity,  an  immense  consumer  of  men,  of  horses, 
of  vessels  of  war,  of  munitions  and  of  money.  You  would 
not  say,  to  look  at  this  manikin,  that  he  has  a  bigger 
stomach  than  another.  But  like  Garagantua,  he  would 
swallow,  at  a  mouthful,  the  largest  budget. 

At  once  pliant  and  tenacious,  indifferent  and  determined, 
he  retracts  but  to  return,  he  grants  but  to  resume  ;  he  leaves 
you  but  the  alternative,  which  you  cannot  avoid  offering 
him,  and  tagged  to  all  his  concessions  you  may  find  some- 
thing to  this  effect :  "  Do  the  one  thing  or  the  other,  pro- 

25* 


294  REVOLUTION      OF     JULY. 

vidcd  you  do  the  other  :"  "  Give  us  either  this  or  that,  we 
care  not,  if  only  you  give  us  that  which  we  ask." 

I  like,  after  all,  this  natural,  lively,  free-and-easy  dis- 
courser.  He  converses  with  me,  and  never  declaims.  He 
does  not  psalmodize  everlastingly  on  the  same  tone,  like  the 
brother  preachers  of  the  Doctrine.  It  is  true,  indeed,  he 
too  ends,  at  the  long  run,  by  wearying  me  with  his  prattle. 
But  it  is  a  sort  of  warbling  which  is  still  a  recreation  from 
the  oratorical  monotony,  that  eternal  bore,  the  most  unbear- 
able of  bores  to  a  parliamentary  martyr,  condemned  to 
suffer  it  from  noon  along  to  six  in  the  evening. 

He  does  more  than  move,  more  than  convince  ;  he  iu- 
terests,  he  amuses  that  people,  which  of  all  others,  likes  the 
most  to  be  amused,  to  be  amused  still,  to  be  amused  always, 
even  in  matters  of  the  greatest  gravity. 

M.  Thiers  meditates  without  effort,  and  produces  without 
exhaustion.  He  is  insusceptible  of  fatigue,  and  the  most 
rapid  traveller  of  ideas  that  I  know.  Times  and  events 
pass  before  his  memory  in  their  due  order  and  according  to 
their  dates,  and  nature,  which  others  have  to  search  for,  pre- 
sents herself  to  him  uncalled,  in  all  the  pomp  of  her  majesty 
and  all  the  graces  of  her  smile.  Have  you  observed  on 
board  the  steamboats  which  plough  our  rivers,  that  glass  sus- 
pended against  the  cabin-wall  wherein  the  shore  is  reflected? 
It  exhibits  in  rapid  passage  by  you  tire  beautiful  villages, 
the  tall-spired  churches,  the  verdant  meadows,  the  wood- 
crowned  mountains,  the  swelling  sails  of  vessels,  the  yel- 
low corn-fields,  the  flocks  of  the  valley,  the  clouds  of  the 
air,  the  animals  and  the  men.  Such  is  M.  Thiers — a  sort 
of  parliamentary  mirror,  he  reflects  the  passions  of  others, 
but  has  none  himself;  he  v/eeps,  but  he  has  not  a  tear  in 
his  eyes  ;  he  stabs  himself  with  a  dagger  v»'hich  does  not 
draw  a  drop  of  blood.  Pure  acting  all  this,  but  what  act- 
ing and  what  an  actor  !  What  naturalness,  what  versatility  ! 
what  fertility  of  imitation  !  what  surprising  inflexions  of 
tone  !  what  transparence  and  lucidity  in  that  style  !  what 
graceful  negligence  in  that  diction  ! — but  no,  you  are  de- 


M  .     T  il  I  E  R  S  .  295 

ceiving  me,  comedian,  and  you  mean  to  deceive.  You  play 
your  part  admirably,  but  it  is  no  more  than  a  part ;  all  this 
I  know,  and  yet  I  suffer  myself  to  be  carried  away  by  your 
allurements;  I  cannot  resist  so  long  as  you  speak,  being 
under  the  influence  of  the  charm,  and  I  almost  prefer  hear- 
ing even  error  from  your  lips,  to  the  truth  from  the  lips  of 
another ! 

For  example,  how  consummate  he  was  in  the  play  of  the 
Bastiles  !  I  have  witnessed  all  the  best  exhibitions  in  the 
dramatic  line,  grand  opera,  comic  opera,  vaudeville  and 
farce,  which  have  appeared  in  the  theatre  of  the  Palais- 
Bourbon.  But  I  must  own  that  the  fortifications  of  Paris 
are  the  most  astonishing  of  the  mystifications  and  other 
whirlio-iors  which  I  have  seen.  Never  did  better  comedian 
play  poorer  play.  He  dropped  himself  with  such  art,  he 
attitudinized  in  that  part  with  such  an  ingenuity  of  fan- 
tasy, he  so  animated  the  scene  and  produced  so  complete  an 
illusion  in  all  the  spectators  that  they  were  unable  to  re- 
frain, even  those  who  came  to  hiss  him,  from  exclaiming  : 
''  Bravo  !  perfectly  played  !  admirably  done  !" — and  at  the 
conclusion,  so  happy  was  his  sleight-of-hand,  that  he  placed 
the  Chamber  under  his  goblet,  and  then  lifted  it,  but  there 
was  no  Chamber,  and  the  feat  was  complete ! 

M.  Thiers  has  often  given  me  the  idea  of  a  woman  with- 
out a  beard,  an  educated  and  intellectual  woman — not  stand- 
ing, but  sitting,  in  the  tribune — and  knitting  a  chit-chat  about 
a  thousand  topics,  jumping  from  one  to  another  with  a  light 
gracefulness,  and  with  no  appearance  of  the  slightest  men- 
tal exertion  upon  her  ever-moving  lips. 

He  is  suppler  than  the  most  attenuated  steel  spring.  He 
bends  himself,  he  relaxes  himself,  he  sinks  or  rises  with  his 
subject.  He  turns  himself  spirally  around  the  question, 
from  the  trunk  along  to  the  top.  He  mounts,  descends,  re- 
mounts, suspends  himself  from  the  branches,  hides  in  the 
thickest  of  the  foliage,  appears,  disappears,  and  performs  a 
thousand  tricks,  with  the  pretty  agility  of  a  squirrel. 


296  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

He  would  extract  monev  from  a  rock.  Where  others  do 
but  glean,  he  reaps  a  harvest. 

He  claps  the  wing,  he  basks  in  the  sun.  He  takes  the 
tints  by  turns,  of  purple,  of  gold  a^d  of  azure.  He  does  not 
speak,  he  coos ;  he  does  not  coo,  he  whistles  ;  he  does  not 
whistle,  he  warbles,  and  is  so  enchanting  both  in  color  and 
melody,  that  one  knows  not  which  to  admire  the  most,  his 
voice  or  his  plumage. 

M.  Thiers  can  make  you  a  speech  of  three  hours  long, 
upon  architecture,  poetry,  law,  naval  affairs,  military  strat- 
egy, although  neither  poet,  nor  architect,  nor  jurist,  nor 
sailor,  nor  soldier,  provided  he  is  allowed  an  afternoon's 
preparation.  He  must  have  astounded  his  oldest  chiefs  of 
division  when  he  used  to  dissert  to  them  on  the  subject  of 
adminstration.  To  hear  him  talk  of  curves,  arches,  abut- 
ments, hydraulic  mortar,  you  would  have  thought  him  a 
mason,  if  not  an  architect.  He  would  dispute  upon  chem- 
istry with  Gay-Lussac,  and  teach  Arago  how  to  point  his 
telescope  upon  Venus  or  Jupiter. 

His  discourse  on  the  state  of  Belgium  is  a  masterpiece  of 
historical  exposition.  In  the  affair  of  Ancona,  he  explained 
strategetical  positions,  bastions,  polygons,  counterscarps,  re- 
doubts, to  the  astonishment  of  officers  of  genius.  He  was 
taken  for  one  of  the  trade,  for  a  man  of  learning. 

Fine  arts,  canals,  rail-roads,  finance,  commerce,  history, 
journalism,  transcendental  politics,  street-regulations,  thea- 
tres, war,  literature,  religion,  municipalities,  morals,  amuse- 
ments, great  things,  middling  things,  small  things,  what  mat- 
ters it  to  him  ?  He  is  at  home  in  all.  He  is  prepared  upon 
all  subjects,  because  he  is  prepared  upon  none.  He  does  not 
speak  like  other  orators,  because  he  speaks  like  all  the  world. 
Other  orators  premeditate  more  or  less,  but  he  extemporizes. 
Other  orators  perorate,  but  he  converses  ;  and  how  are  you 
to  be  on  your  guard  against  a  man  who  talks  like  you,  like  me, 
better  than  J'^ou,  than  1,  than  any  other  person.  Other  ora- 
tors, behind  the  scenes,  betray  some  glimpse  of  the  buskin, 
and  by  the  reflection  of  the  mirror  you  may  see  their  wav- 


M  .      THIERS.  297 

ing  plumes.  They  are  ready  laced,  attired,  and  the  foot 
pointed  forward.  They  wait  but  the  rise  of  the  curtain  to 
advance  upon  the  stage.  On  the  contrary,  you  seize  M. 
Thiers  as  he  dismounts  from  his  horse,  and  you  say  to  him : 
Come,  hasten,  the  hall  is  full  and  the  public  await  you  im- 
patiently ;  take  your  mask  and  play  what  character  you 
choose,  a  minister,  a  general,  an  artist,  a  puritan,  but  act  ! 
M.  Thiers  will  not  allow  himself  the  time  to  wipe  the  per- 
spiration from  his  brow  and  drink  a  glass  of  sugared  water. 
He  does  not  even  unboot  himself;  he  enters  upon  the  stage, 
he  bows,  he  attitudinizes,  he  grimaces  before  the  spectators, 
he  improvisates  the  characters,  arranges  the  dialogue,  un- 
ravels the  plots  and  learns  his  part  in  playing  it.  He  plays 
sometimes  two  of  them,  turns  about,  doffs  his  mask,  puts  on 
another  ;  and  always  the  same  he  is  always  different,  always 
in  his  element,  always  a  consummate  actor. 

I  have  however  to  reproach  him  with  smiling  sometimes 
at  his  success  as  he  descends  from  the  tribune.  A  good 
comedian  who  would  maintain  the  illusion  of  the  public  re- 
specting the  reality  of  his  part,  ought  never  to  laugh  at  the 
farce  he  has  just  been  playing.  In  this  respect,  I  admit  it, 
M.  Thiers  has  still  some  progress  to  make. 

If  M.  Thiers  spoke  less  quickly,  he  would  be  less  listened 
to.  But  he  precipitates  his  phraseology  with  so  much  volu- 
bility, that  the  apprehension  of  the  Chamber  can  neither 
precede  nor  even  follow  it.  In  this  point  of  view,  his  de- 
fect is  an  advantage,  and  he  is  more  of  an  artist  than  he  in- 
tends. He  ends  sometimes,  it  is  true,  by  losing  himself  in 
the  details,  and  rambles,  from  right  to  left,  so  far  from  the 
subject  that  he  breaks  off  without  concluding.  Might  not 
this  also  be,  in  case  of  need,  an  effect,  ratiier  than  a  defect, 
of  his  art  ? 

Once  started,  he  would  gallop  on,  without  stopping,  from 
matins  to  vespers. 

It  rarely  happens  that  these  great  talkers  are  great  poli- 
ticians. Often  they  chance  to  say  what  were  better  omitted, 
and  omit  what  ought  to  be  said.     They  are,  ordinarily,  vain. 


298  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

giddy,  peremptory,  presumptuous.  By  getting  them  to 
speak,  a  thing  always  easy,  you  lead  them  into  the  snare 
of  their  indiscretion.  More  reserve  is  requisite  for  the  con- 
duct of  state  affairs. 

I  am  almost  tempted  to  think  that  M.  Thiers  has  too  much 
intellect  for  a  minister.  Distrust,  for  the  purposes  of  govern- 
ment, those  men  who  talk  too  much,  and  above  all  those  who 
talk  too  well  ! 

Each  form  of  government  has  its  defects.  In  represen- 
tative governments  the  orators  alone  lead  the  majorities,  and 
the  majorities  alone  make  the  ministers.  Every  minister  to 
have  influence  must  be  an  orator,  and  every  minister  who  is 
an  orator  may  not  be  a  statesman.  Colbert  and  Sully  were 
not  orators  ;  they  could  not  have  been  minister  in  our  time. 
J.  J.  Rousseau  could  not  put  together  two  phrases  in  public. 
Talleyrand*  would  have  stopped  short  at  the  end  of  a  quar- 
ter-hour's parliamentary  conversation.  Chateaubriand  hes- 
itates, and  Montesquieu  would  probably  have  been  discom- 
fited in  a  wordy  contest  by  the  lowest  clerk  of  the  lowest 
attorney  of  Brives-la-Gaillarde. 

Certainly,  M.  Dupin  presides,  makes  orations,  brings  in 
requisitions  to  a  wonder  ;  yet  placed  at  the  ministerial  table, 
he  would  not  have  two  ideas  at  the  tail  of  one  another,  and 
would  change  his  opinion  forty-five  times  in  forty-five  min- 
utes. M.  Thiers  has  more  stability,,  he  is  less  unequal,  less 
caustic,  less  versatile.  He  does  not  put  his  maxims  into 
epigrams.  He  will  not  kill  his  colleagues  with  a  bon-mot. 
But  has  he  the  spirit  of  sequence,  of  direction,  of  persever- 
ance, of  wisdom,  indispensable  to  great  affairs  ?  Does  he 
not  yield  too  easily  to  the  dominion  of  a  system,  to  the  ca- 
price of  an  idea?  Is  he  not  too  irresolute,  too  wavering, 
then  too  precipitate,  too  decisive  ?  Has  he  not  more  fire  than 
judgment  ?  Does  not  his  imagination  of  artist  transport  him 
into  devious  excursions  ?  Does  he  not  allow  himself  to  be 
dazzled  and  determined  by  the  grandeur  of  things  rather 

*  So,  too,  vritli  Franklin,  and  several  others  of  the  like  mental 
character. 


M  .     T  H  I  E  K  fa- .  299 

than  by  their  utility,  by  the  adventurous  rather  than  by  the 
practicable  ?  He  has  no  faith  in  the  devotion  of  virtue,  nor 
in  the  miracles  of  honor  ;  he  believes  firmly  but  in  the  power 
of  gold  ;  this  gold  he  would  squander  by  the  ton  to  build  a 
triumphal  arch  upon  some  foolish  conquest.  He  seems  un- 
conscious that  the  public  money  is  the  chyle  and  blood  of 
the  people ;  that  this  blood  is  precious  and  ought  to  be  hus- 
banded ;  that  economy  is  the  first  of  public  virtues,  and  that 
the  best  of  governments  is,  on  the  whole,  that  which  costs 
the  least.  IM.  Guizot  and  his  school  have  dried  up  our  souls. 
M.  Thiers  and  his  school  would  empty  our  pockets.  The 
one  would  deprive  us  of  the  small  remnant  of  our  virtue, 
the  other  of  the  remaining  pittance  of  our  money.  They 
have  both  succeeded  so  well,  with  the  aid  of  the  Camarilla^ 
that  there  is  no  longer  amongst  us  any  political  probity,  that 
we  have  ceased  to  have  faith  in  anything  or  upon  anything ; 
and  I  do  not  think  I  calumniate  my  country  in  saying  that, 
thanks  to  these  gentlemen,  the  office-holders  of  France  are 
the  most  spiritless,  the  most  passive,  the  most  servile,  and  the 
most  corrupt  of  all  Europe. 

Reader,  have  you  chanced  to  see  M.  Thiers  rise  to  speak 
in  the  Chamber  ?  Have  you  not  admired  the  resourceful 
fertility  of  that  brilliant  and  ingenious  intellect  ?  Have  you 
seen  him  contending  against  M.  de  Salvandy  on  the  Spanish 
question  ?  It  was  the  combat  of  the  lively,  nimble  and  dar- 
ing  matadore  with  a  colossal  and  unwieldy  ox.  M.  de  Sal- 
vandy, caparisoned  all  over,  perspired  and  puffed  in  his  la- 
borious  argumentation.  Thiers  laid  on  him  about  the  ears 
and  the  loins,  inflicting  a  thousand  wounds.  At  last,  he 
took  him  by  the  horns,  and  prostrated  him  in  the  arena  amid 
the  laughter  of  the  spectators. 

The  clowns  mounted  on  the  horses  of  Franconi  create  an 
illusion  to  the  eyes  of  the  multitude,  when  they  wave  in 
their  hands  several  small  parti-colored  banners.  What  the 
clowns  do  in  the  circus,  M.  Thiers  does  in  the  tribune. 

When  he  perceives  his  conversation  languish  and  the  audi- 
ence begin  to  yawn,  he  turns  suddenly  to  the  Right,  which 


300  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

is  entirely  unprepared  for  such  a  sally,  and  launches  directly 
towards  it  some  stirring  phrases  which  he  keeps  in  reserve, 
about  the  victory  of  Jemmape  and  the  tri-color  standard. 
This  quasi-revolutionary  tirade  never  fails  of  its  effect,  and 
the  sabre-bearers  pick  up  the  unhorsed  orator  who  hastens 
to  resume  his  saddle. 

On  another  occasion,  the  point  vvill  be,  v/hether  M.  Thiers 
has  been  able  to  create  several  additional  regiments  by  a 
simple  ordinance,  without  the  intervention  of  the  Chambers 
and  without  law.  This  will  be  the  whole  question.  Very 
well  !  M.  Thiers  will  pass  over  that  constitutional  consid- 
eration, and  launch  eccentrically  into  an  eulogy  on  the 
heroism  of  the  officers  of  the  army,  to  win  the  applause 
of  their  fellows  of  the  Chamber.  This  device  will  be 
laughed  at.  Laugh  on,  gentlemen,  laugh  as  much  as  you 
please.  Laugh  especially  at  yourselves  and  your  ex- 
penses, for  he  has  gained  his  cause  which  is  very  far  from 
being  yours  ! 

His  broken  voice  sinks,  softens  and  fills  as  it  were  with 
tears  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  his  king,  the  virtues  of  his 
king,  of  his  worthy  ministers,  of  their  noble  and  paternal 
administration.  What  think  you,  by  the  way,  of  that  noble 
and  paternal  administration  which  has  strangled  freedom  of 
discussion  and  inflicted  upon  us  the  amiable  laws  of  Sep- 
tember ?  M.  Thiers  must  have  a  pretty  laugh  at  all  this 
in  the  evening,  seated  in  his  snug  little  opera-box  j  and  how 
he  must  think  us  a  good  sort  of  people  ! 

He  unites  so  much  ministerial  talent  with  so  much  politi- 
cal inconsistency,  and  so  much  oratorical  fertility  with  so 
much  giddiness  of  conduct,  that  he  can  scarcely  be  either 
employed  or  dispensed  with.  M.  Thiers  is  an  aid  which 
will  always  be  an  embarrassment. 

To-day  in  the  garb  of  reformer,  to-morrow  replaced  in 
the  ministry,  he  will  be  able,  from  time  to  time,  to  command 
the  parliamentary  forces.  But  he  will  never  have  soldiers 
of  his  own,  like  Guizot,  Berryer,  and  Odillon-Barrot ;  for 
he  is  not  to  be  recognized  either  by  the  form  of  his  tent — 


M  .     THI  ERg.  301 

which  he  pitches  now  in  one  place,  then  in  another — nor  by 
the  color  of  his  banner,  which  has  a  little  of  red,  a  little 
blue,  and  a  little  white,  but  which  is  neither  red.  nor  blue, 
nor  white. 

Men  without  political  morality  are  wonderfully  well  cal- 
culated to  govern  Assemblies  without  principle.  Besides, 
in  France,  all  things  are  excused  in  people  of  mind,  even 
the  changing  their  principles.  It  is  only  the  blockheads  who 
are  not  allowed  to  be  inconstant. 

I  was  mistaken — and  who  would  not  have  made  the  same 
mistake — when  I  once  said,  that,  notwithstanding  his  talent, 
M.  Thiers  would  never  reach  the  first  post  in  the  state,  be- 
cause he  lacked  all  sorts  of  consideration.  Consideration  is 
the  fruit  of  an  elevated  probity,  like  that  of  M.  Dupont  de 
I'Eure  ;  or  of  a  political  character  which  has  never  belied 
itself,  like  that  of  General  Lafayette  ;  or  of  an  immense 
fortune  acquired  by  long  toil,  like  that  of  Casimir-Perier  ; 
or  of  a  patronage  of  long  standing  and  a  princely  gener- 
osity,  like  that  of  M.  Lafitte  ;  or  of  high  dignity  and  even 
(it  must  be  owned,  under  the  prejudice  of  our  weak  notions) 
of  high  birth,  like  that  of  the  Duke  de  BroMie  ;  or  of  mili- 
tary  rank  and  the  splendor  of  victories,  and  services  ren- 
dered by  a  life  of  glory,  like  that  of  Marshal  Gerard  ;  or 
of  illustrious  ancestry  and  personal  gravity,  like  that  of  M. 
Mole  ;  or  of  a  dignified  and  modest  life,  like  that  of  Royer- 
Collard  ;  or  it  sometimes  proceeds  from  grace  of  manner 
ariid  a  polished  affability  of  address,  like  that  of  M.  de  Tal- 
leyrand— and  this  is  a  quality  not  to  be  disdained  in  a  coun- 
try where  the  immovable  master  sends  his  orders  to  the 
Cabinet,  and  the  ministers  are  nothing  more  than  clerks  and 
factors.  But,  to  which  of  these  several  kinds  of  considera- 
tion does  M.  Thiers  pretend  ?  We  should  be  much  at  a  loss 
to  say — and  so  would  he  himself. 

And  yet  M.  Thiers  has  been  twice  prime  minister,  although 
wanting  this  consideration  ;  and  what  is  still  more  extraor- 
■dinary,  he  has  fallen  into  disgrace,  and  he  has  not  been 

26 


302  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

sent,  for  the  amusement  of  the  sultan,  an  ambassador  to  the 
grand  seignior  ! 

The  Doctrinarian  party  too,  who  in  the  ^arly  days  of  the 
Restoration  had  taken  him  into  their  pay,  had  never  taken 
him  into  their  estee'hi.  All  in  patting  him  on  the  back  to 
flatter  him,  they  dreaded  his  cat-like  springs  and  claws. 
They  never  seated  him  by  them  on  the  sofa.  They  kept 
him  at  a  distance.  They  regarded  him  as  a  man  without 
consistency  or  principle,  linked  to  them  by  complicity  in  the 
same  misdeeds,  but  who  could  never  rise  to  the  height  of 
their  axioms,  and  whose  coat,  well-brushed  though  it  was, 
always  betrayed,  amidst  the  embroidery,  certain  stains  of 
revolutionary  mire. 

M.  Thiers,  on  his  part,  bore  their  haughty  yoke  with  im- 
patience. He  bent,  he  writhed,  he  stooped  to  the  earth,  be- 
fore them  ;  but  it  was*  for  the  purpose  of  taking  by  the  legs. 
Hidden  in  his  hole,  he  burrowed  their  ruin.  He  worked 
with  hands  and  feet  to  sap  the  edifice  of  their  greatness. 
He  was  the  mole  of  the  ministry. 

M.  Thiers  made,  about  this  time,  some  very  remarkable 
progress  in  religion.  The  sole  topics  at  court  and  in  the 
tribune  were  God  and  his  angels,  paradise,  the  blessed  Vir- 
gin,  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  the  holy  benedictions  of 
Heaven,  the  holy  martyrs,  the  holy  miracles,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  Providence  to  politics.  In  the  mouths  of  the  strange 
characters  who  uttered  these  words,  this  was  a  sort  of  blas- 
phemy. The  philosophers  of  Grenelle-street  knelt  humbly 
on  cushions  of  gold  and  purple,  and  Atheism  became  devotee. 
How  is  it  to  be  supposed  that  with  this  state  of  things  the 
dynasty  should  not  have  been  preserved  ? 

For  the  rest,  M.  Thiers,  without  being  quite  a  holy  man, 
is  not  a  naturally  bad  one  ;  he  has  not  the  force  either  to 
love  or  to  hate.  Ho  may  be  pushed  to  excesses,  but  he  will 
not  commit  them  unprovoked.  If  he  is  light  in  character 
and  impudent  in  manners,  these  defects  are  to  be  ascribed 
to  his  bad  education :  where  could  he  have  learned  the  pro- 


M  .      THIERS.  303 

prieties  of  demeanor'?  But  he  is  not  a  man  to  do  evil  for 
evil's  sake. 

Nor  do  I  think  him  a  man  to  love  money,  for  its  own 
sake  ;  and  it  is  great  candor  in  me,  it  is  almost  courage,  to 
say  so.  For  I  had  been  for  a  long  time  persuaded  of  the 
contrary. 

I  must  also  say,  that  M.  Thiers  resigned  his  place  for 
reasons  which  were  honorable,  and  even  logical,  considered 
in  his  point  of  view;  that  he  comported  himself  not  without 
dignity  and  disinterestedness,  and  that  neither  he  nor  M. 
Guizot,  on  retiring  from  office,  have  imitated  those  shabby 
personages  whom  we  liave  seen  carry  off  with  them  what- 
ever was  not  too  hot  or  too  heavy. 

In  fine,  I  hold  M.  Thiers,  I  repeat  it,  to  be  a  man  of  won- 
derful mind,  a  mind  of  great  fertility  of  expedients,  of  ver- 
satility, of  clearness,  of  address,  of  keenness,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  a  naturalness  that  pleases  all  the  more  that  it 
contrasts  the  more  with  the  ambitious  magnificence  of  the 
tribune. 

But  also  what  affectation  to  talk  constantly  of  his  probity  ! 
What  cruel  and  detestable  irony  to  vaunt  his  fidelity  to  the 
Revolution  of  July,  he  who  has  so  utterly  betrayed  it ! — he 
the  admirer  of  the  Convention,  who  tagged  himself  to  the 
tail  of  a  quasi-legitimist  majority  !  he,  a  son  of  the  people, 
who  yet  advocated  a  hereditary  peerage  !  he,  the  panegyrist 
of  the  republican  Danton,  who  afterwards  used  to  place 
himself  on  botli  knees  to  play  with  his  king's  shoe-buckles, 
and  who  made  himself  the  intimate  confidant  of  the  delicate 
secrets  of  the  wardrobe  I  he,  who,  beyond  all  others,  should 
have  kept  his  place  at  the  tribune,  and  who  preferred  to  shut 
himself  up  in  suspicious  supervision  of  the  secret  funds  and 
the  telegraphs  ! 

M.  Thiers  thought  that  a  Court  parvenu,  a  mushroom 
forced  into  rapid  growth  by  revolutionary  dung,  might  gain 
the  height  of  an  oak  and  protect  eternally  the  Tuileries  with 
its  shade.  But  as  soon  as  the  tempest  is  over,  the  mush- 
rooms sink  back  into  the  earth.     Kings  avail  themselves  of 


304  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

people  of  this  low  description,  but  when  they  are  pressingly 
in  need  of  them,  or  when  thev  are  afraid.  Monarchies  as- 
similate  but  with  aristocracies.  These  are  the  branches  and 
foliao-e  of  the  same  tree :  both  have  toijether  but  the  same 
life,  and  draw  from  the  same  soil  'their  same  and  common 
nutriment.  This  M.  Thiers  has  not  observed,  a  circum- 
stance which  does  little  credit  to  his  judgment. 

After  his  first  dismissal,  M.  Thiers  rowed  between  Scylla 
and  Charybdis  with  an  incredible  dexterity  of  tugging,  avoid- 
ing the  left  without  making  the  right  j  you  see  plainly  that 
he  has  passed  through  the  straits  of  the  ministry  of  Foreign 
Affairs.  His  speeches  of  that  period,  prepared  in  advance 
and  extremely  elaborated,  are  little  master-pieces  for  the  use 
of  ministerial  aspirants.  He  there  intimates  to  the  dynastic 
Opposition,  with  a  caressing  kindness,  the  price  of  his  new 
friendship.  He  assures,  merely  in  passing,  M.  Mole  that  he 
may  half-reckon  upon  his  disdainful  protection,  and  he  over- 
whelms Guizot  with  mockery  of  his  defeat ;  but  all  this 
with  a  cat's  pace,  in  muffled  words.  To  good  hearers,  the 
meaning  was  that  each  of  the  two  parties  would  be  too  happy 
to  have  recourse  to  him.  But,  an  ally  too  uncertain  of  the 
one,  an  ally  too  recent  of  the  other,  M.  Thiers  was  not  enough 
of  a  revolutionist  for  the  Opposition,  and  not  enough  of  a 
royalist  for  the  Doctrinarians. 

Contrary  to  my  habits,  I  lengthen,  \  lengthen  a  little  this 
portrait.  But,  reader,  it  is  indispensable  ;  1  have  to  do  with 
the  most  long-winded  of  our  speecli-makers,  and  I  promised 
to  give  you  a  good  likeness.  If,  however,  I  begin  to  weary 
you,  you  have  but  to  say  so,  and  I  will  lay  down  my  pen. 
But  I  do  not  think  the  painter,  or  rather  his  subject,  fangues 
you  yet,  and  I  am  going  to  profit  of  the  ministerial  inter, 
reign,  the  point  at  which  I  am  now  arrived,  to  sum  up  the 
personage. 

Ready  for  all  things,  to  labor,  to  banquet,  to  converse,  to 
idle,  to  keep  awake,  to  fall  asleep — fit  for  all  things,  for 
statistics,  for  finance,  for  history  and  geography,  for  mili- 
tary strategy,   for  belles-lettres,   for  the  fine  arts,  for  the 


M.THIERS.  305 

practical  sciences,  for  social  economy,  for  the  public  works, 
for  political  scheming — not  doubting  of  anything,  if  it  be 
not  sometimes  of  himself — unable  to  dispense  with  others, 
who  in  turn  cannot  do  without  him — neither  too  constitu- 
tional to  give  alarm  to  the  Court,  nor  too  monarchical  to  dis- 
please the  Constitutionalists — a  man  of  circumstance  in  a 
country  of  circumstance,  a  man  of  the  moment  in  our  gov- 
ernments of  the  moment — believing,  in  nothing  in  a  society 
where  nothing  is  believed  in,  and  perfectly  formed  after  its 
image  and  likeness — the  ablest  of  all  the  writers  and  states- 
men who  have  ever  mounted  upon  their  flying  cars  the  ar- 
tillery of  the  press — a  plausible  speaker,  universal  and  in- 
terminable— an  artist  in  business,  beyond  all  other  artists — 
disdainful  of  charters  and  laws  for  having  with  impunity 
violated  them — disdainful  of  men,  for  having,  I  was  going  to 
say  corrupted,  but  it  will  be  more  polite  to  say  seduced, 
them — veering  his  bark  of  fortune  to  the  wind  of  all  sys- 
tems, and  setting  all  her  sail  at  once,  though  she  were  to  be 
dashed  the  next  instant  against  a  thousand  shoals — presump- 
tuous and  fastidious,  daring  and  timid — entering  upon  the 
course  with  intention  to  outstrip  space  itself,  and  stopping  at 
the  obstacle  of  a  grain  of  sand — a  vagabond  of  ideas,  a  pro- 
jector of  plans,  a  seeker  of  expedients,  an  undertaker  of 
adventures,  a  bastard  of  principles  like  the  cause  he  serves 
— so  embroiled  in,  so  intermingled  with  all  the  coteries,  all 
the  state  secrets,  all  the  movements,  all  the  windings,  all 
the  weaknesses,  all  the  fears,  all  the  littlenesses,  all  the  do- 
mesticities of  this  regime,  and  so  adherent,  so  glued  to  its 
loins  and  its  very  bones,  like  the  shirt  of  Nessus,  that  he 
cannot  be  detached  without  tearing  away  some  fragments  of 
his  flesh — in  fine,  a  veritable  Frenchman — Frenchman  of 
our  age — such  as  we  are  told  he  ought  to  be  and  as  it  would 
perhaps  be  impossible  that  he  were  not,  M.  Thiers,  whether 
minister,  deputy,  or  citizen,  will  always  be,  under  the  species 
of  monarchy  in  which  we  live,  amongst  the  most  considerable 
men,  nay,  the  most  considerable  of  all ;  the  word  is  written 
and  I  maintain  it. 

26* 


505  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

I  could  wish,  for  my  part,  M.  Thiers  did  not  make  so  many- 
passages  back  and  forth  across  his  slop-pool  of  first  presi- 
dencies, wherein  I  with  difficulty  see  my  way  ;  and  I  leave 
you  to  think  what  the  task  would  be  to  classify,  compare, 
enumerate,  define,  admire  the  positions  -and  merits  of  the 
secondary  counsellors  of  the  cabinet.  Verily,  it  would  be 
to  lose  one's  self  in  a  chaos  ;  and  to  increase  the  confusion 
when  the  company  of  M.  Thiers  comes  to  fail,  piles  of  ac- 
compt  books  at  once  encumber  the  bureau  of  the  Chamber. 
Ministers,  directors,  chiefs,  clerks,  and  down  to  the  runners, 
all  hasten  to  obtain  their  examination  and  discharge  at  the 
tribune,  in  the  newspapers  and  at  the  treasury.  M.  Thiers, 
the  examiner-in-chief,  rises  to  speak  some  twenty-five  times 
in  succession,  ergotizes  like  an  attorney  upon  every  item, 
'affects  more  than  the  scrupulousness  of  Bareme,  masks  an 
expenditure,  skips  a  cipher,  and  disputes  a  sous.  And  then 
erectino;  the  head  bv  slow  decrees,  he  extends  his  little  arms, 
and  threatens  with  the  wrath  of  the  gods  and  the  contempt  of 
mankind,  whosoever  should  find  anything  to  censure  in  so 
much  financial  genius  and  so  much  intrepid  retrenchment. 

Following  his  example,  each  of  the  associates  self-styled 
responsible,  of  this  fulminant  Agamemnon,  prattles  and  bat- 
tles for  his  little  fraction  of  the  ministry.  He  imagines 
France  has  her  eyes  upon  him,  and  that  posterity  is  already 
in  anxiety  about  his  official  conduct.  Go  back  to  your 
shops,  ye  word-pedlars,  get  you  gone  !  the  parliamentary 
curfew  has  tolled,  let  each  of  you  go  to  bed  !  Good  night  ! 

How,  I  ask  you,  will  posterity  view  these  miserable  min- 
isterial quarrels,  between  the  altliough  and  the  because,  be- 
tween M.  Peter  and  M.  Paul,  between  Mr.  this  and  Mr. 
that  ?  To  signalize  these  great  ministers  to  the  admiration 
of  futurity,  to  elevate  them  beacons  along  the  shores  of  time, 
every  day  of  the  Gregorian  calendar  has  been  exhausted. 
It  is  the  2nd  November,  the  \bth  March,  the  22nd  February, 
the  Qth  September,  the  29th  October,  ....  the,  I  know  not 
what  other  date,  of  what  other  month,  of  all  the  months 
which  God  has  made.     It  is  fortunate  that  all  these  persons 


M  .      THIERS  307 

have  not  taken  it  into  their  heads  to  call  themselves  the  min- 
istry of  St.  Polycarp,  of  St.  Nicholas,  of  St.  Pacomius,  St. 
Bonavenlure  ;  otherwise,  as  things  go,  all  the  saints  of  Par- 
adise would  end  with  having  this  ministerial  appendage. 

For  the  rest,  names,  dates,  principles,  systems,  persons 
are  of  little  concern  to  M.  Thiers  ;  that  is  not  what  he  is 
about.  When  out  of  office,  whether  by  resignation  or  dis- 
missal, he  is  always  in  pursuit  of  the  ministry,  even  when 
he  appears  to  be  aiming  at  nothing,  and  he  holds  himself  in 
the  leash  of  the  Chamber,  in  full  readiness  to  pounce  upon 
his  prey.  It  is  in  this  way  that  for  the  second  time — and  I 
have  to  share  the  blame — he  slipped  into  power  between  two 
conflicting  ballots. 

But  his  antecedents  have  pitilessly  shackled  him,  and  he 
has  been  weak  because  he  had  been  so  before  ;  inconstant, 
because  he  had  been  already  inconstant ;  rambling,  in  his 
foreign  policy,  from  England  to  Russia  and  from  Russia  to 
England,  and,  in  the  interior,  from  the  people  to  the  Court 
and  from  the  Court  to  the  people,  without  being  once  able  to 
choose  or  to  decide. 

It  is  also  in  some  degree  the  fault  of  Parliament.  Who 
can  conceive  the  empire  of  phraseology  in  the  French  Cham- 
bers ?  They  are  deluded,  they  are  excited,  and  they  forget 
all  the  faults,  all  the  anterior  facts,  all  the  crimes  even,  of 
the  speaker.  They  can  withstand  examples,  figures,  expe- 
rience, logic.  But  they  find  it  impossible  to  resist  the  elabo- 
rate artifices  of  speech-makers  and  sophists.  These  are  the 
favorites  in  representative  governments.  A  man  of  forty 
years  is  made  a  diplomatist,  merely  because  his  tongue  is 
well-strung  to  the  palate  and  that  he  can  spout  empty  phrases 
by  the  thousand  :  but  what  diplomatists  ! 

M.  Thiers  was  mistaken  like  a  child,  and  upon  almost 
every  subject.  He  did  not  comprehend  that  there  could 
exist  between  despotic  and  constitutional  governments,  but  a 
varnished  peace  and  mendacious  alliances.  He  did  not 
comprehend  that  if  the  regiments  of  Europe  were  retained 
under    arms,   it  is  that  "a  volcano  of  liberty  mutters  and 


308  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

rumbles  underneath  the  thrones  of  absolute  kings.  But 
there  is  a  sort  of  mutual  insurance  between  these  kings. 
Fear  is  stronger  in  them  than  ambition.  They,  no  doubt, 
prefer  usurpation  to  anarchy,  but  they  prefer  legitimacy  to 
usurpation. 

Principles  alone  make  revolutions  and  revolutionizers. 
Principles  alone  make  monarchies,  aristocracies,  republics, 
parliaments.  Principles  alone  make  morality  and  religion, 
peace  and  war.     Principles  lead  the  world. 

True,  M.  Thiers  affirms  that  there  are  no  principles ; 
which  means  that  M.  Thiers  has  none.     This  is  all. 

He  was  also  mistaken  in  1837  respecting  Spain,  who  was 
not  able,  he  said,  to  defend  herself  against  the  Carlists,  and 
in  1840,  respecting  Syria,  who  would,  he  said,  defend  her- 
self all  alone  against  the  English. 

It  was  yet  summer,  and  he  intended  making  war  not 
till  the  ensuing  spring  ;  but  Egypt  would  have  been  con- 
quered, Mehemet  beheaded,  Algiers  blockaded,  and  France 
invaded,  by  autumn.  The  last  street-runner  of  the  Foreign 
Office  would  have  foreseen  this,  but  not  M.  Thiers. 

It  had  besides  been  expedient  to  oppose  ideas  to  the  can- 
non. But  M.  Thiers  had  neither  ideas  nor  cannon.  At 
last,  imagining  that  he  made  Louis  Philippe  obnoxious  and 
Europe  afraid,  he  hid  the  parliamentary  government  behind 
the  personal,  and  France  behind  a  Httle  grotto  of  shell-work. 
Was  not  this  a  grand  and  judicious  policy  ! 

M.  Thiers  assures  us  that  his  responsibility  does  not  suffi^r 
him  to  sleep.  So  much  the  worse,  and  that  is  the  evil.  A 
minister  after  midnight  ought  always  to  sleep.  Alexander, 
Conde,  and  Napoleon,  had  to  be  awaked  from  a  heavy  sleep 
the  morning  of  the  battles  of  Arbala,  Rocroy,  and  Auster- 
litz.  M.  Thiers,  it  is  true,  has  not,  that  I  know,  as  yet 
gained  any  battles  of  this  kind. 

A  minister  ought  to  survey  every  peril  of  the  state  with- 
out panic  or  precipitation,  and  with  an  elevated  and  steady 
glance  ;  it  is  for  this  that  he  is  minister.  Say  not  that  M. 
Thiers  was  ruled  by  the  Court.     A  bad  excuse  !     He  had 


M .    T  11  r  E  R  s .  309 

but  two  courses  to  take,  either  to  surmount  the  occult  power 
which  trod  him  down,  or  to  sead  in  his  resignation.  Unfor- 
tunately, it  is  always  but  after  the  event  that  M.  Thiers 
comes  to  kno.w  that  he  should  have  done  what  he  has  not 
done,  and  omitted  what  he  has.  He  starts  always  too  soon, 
but  to  arrive  too  late. 

In  fine,  he  has,  in  his  last  ministry,  been  more  considerate 
towards  his  adversaries  than  serviceable  to  his  friends.  He 
was  content  with  a  majority  of  personal  property  and  rent- 
roll,  instead  of  a  majority  of  sympathy  and  of  principle. 
He  had  neither  the  sense  to  avoid  the  snares  laid  by  his  sub- 
ordinates, nor  to  fly  the  deceitful  caresses  of  his  master ; 
neither  to  dissolve  the  Chamber  nor  to  convoke  it ;  neither 
to  enter  into  the  alliance  nor  to  relinquish  it ;  to  advance  in 
time  the  fleet,  nor  to  recall  it ;  neither  to  employ  that  tem- 
perate and  courteous  language  which  assuages,  nor  take 
those  sudden  and  decisive  steps  which  intimidate — neither 
to  negotiate,  nor  to  conquer,  nor  to  govern. 

He,  who  was  to  break  up  the  quadruple  alliapce,  to  open 
with  his  lance  the  barriers  of  the  Rhine,  to  cut  down  to  the 
level  of  a  ferry-boat  the  frigates  of  the  British  squadron,  hoist 
the  tri-colored  flag  on  the  forts  of  Alexandria,  cruise  tri- 
umphantly  upon  the  French  lake  of  the  Mediterranean,  and, 
from  his  ministerial  horn,  pour  torrents  of  riches  and  pros- 
perities over  his  country  ;  what  has  he  in  fact  done  ?  Why, 
bequeathed  us  for  whole  legacy  the  miserable  disdain  and 
ridicule  of  the  Cossacks  and  Pandours  of  Constantinople 
and  St.  Petersburgh,  and  of  the  cockneys  and  bullies  of 
London,  the  resurrection  of  personal  government,  the  revi- 
val of  the  laws  of  September,  five  hundred  millions  of  pub- 
lic debt,  the  wasteful  and  devouring  poltrooneries  of  the 
"  armed  peace,"  and  the  embastillement  of  Paris — stupid 
enough  to  allow  its  incarceration,  still  mo're  infatuated  to 
applaud  it ! 

When  M.  Thiers  jumps  into  the  ministerial  car,  it  is  very 
necessary  to  beware  of  his  Phaeton-like  driving  ;  and  I  con- 
fess, for  my  part,  that  I  never  feel  quite  at  ease,  and  am  al- 


310  REVOLUTION     OF     JULY.  ^ 

ways  ready  to  cry  out :  Farmers,  hoard  your  grain,  the 
tax  is  about  to  be  doubled.  Fathers,  embrace  your  sons  for 
the  last  time  perhaps,  they  are  to  be  called  away  from  you. 
Capitalists,  sell  your  scrip,  the  funds  are  falling.  Soldiers, 
draw  your  cutlasses,  the  blood  is  going  to  flow.  King,  what 
die  of  fortune  is  there  at  the  bottom  of  your  box  ?  And 
you.  Liberty,  be  armed  and  on  your  guard  ! 

Since  the  most  intellectual  of  our  men  of  intellect  [esprit) 
has  brought  us  to  this  pitch,  I  every  night  offer  a  prayer  to 
God,  that  he  may  give  us  to  be  governed  to  a  downright 
blockhead.  If  our  state  be  nothing  the  less  bad  for  it,  it 
will  at  least  be  different. 

And  yet,  M.  Thiers  not  only  has  all  the  capacity  which 
it  is  possible  to  have,  but  is  also  as  true  a  Frenchman  as 
any  citizen  of  this  country.  He  has  a  sentiment  of  nation- 
ality, so  deep,  so  generous,  so  genuine,  that  I  feel  the  re- 
proach of  his  faults,  in  spite  of  me,  expire  upon  my  lips. 
But  France,  so  basely  treated — France,  who  expected  from 
his  incomparable  talents  the  exterior  triumph  of  her  arms 
and  the  parliamentary  restoration  of  her  liberty — France, 
more  severe  than  I,  rises  in  accusation  against  him,  and  I 
hear  her  address  him  and  his  fellows  in  these  words  : 

"  Men  of  July,  you  whom  I  have  raised  from  obscurity, 
you  whom  I  have  taken  by  the  hand  and  borne  from  step  to 
step  to  the  summit  of  power,  what  have  you  done  with  my 
honor  ?  Wherefore  am  I  become  the  lau^hinsr-stock  of 
Europe  ?  Wherefore  is  it  that,  when  the  outraged  na- 
tions look  their  oppressors  in  the  face,  I  am  present  no 
longer  to  their  hopes,  or  even  their  memory  ?  Wherefore 
does  my  name  no  more  recur  to  their  lips,  when  they  murmur 
the  sacred  accents  of  liberty?  Have  I  then  shed  my  best 
blood  only  to  expiate  the  triumph  of  my  principle,  by  the 
bitter  mockery  of  its  present  consequences  ?  Independence, 
liberty,  country,  honor,  virtue,  you  have  bartered  them  all 
for  gold.  You  have  infected  with  your  cowardly  terrors  those 
Assemblies  who,  formerly,  launched  our  fourteen  armies 
upon  the  enemy ;  that  peasantry  whence  emanated  the  he- 


M.     THIERS.  311 

roes  of  our  great  wars  ;  those  deluded  operatives  who  will 
not  have  learned  to  understand  you,  until  after  you  have 
robbed  and  ruined  them.  You  have  been  to  the  extremity 
of  Europe  to  beseech  a  petty  king  to  have  the  goodness  to 
accept  the  money  of  our  citizens  and  our  laborers,  and  you 
have  been  seen  to  cross  the  Atlantic,  tribute  in  hand,  to  beg 
at  the  knees  of  wily  America,  the  pardon  of  GeneralJack- 
son,  and  the  oblivion  of  our  victories  !  Continue  to  degrade 
5'our  establishment.  Trick  it  off  in  the  mai^nificent  tin- 
selry  of  police  order  and  stock-jobbing.  Act  the  dressing- 
room  valets  to  your  string  of  little  princes.  Act  the  mar- 
quises of  I'QEil-de-Boeuf  with  hob-nailed  shoes  and  tavern 
oaths.  Assume  the  air  of  heroes  and  conquerors  to  the 
priests  of  the  Prophet  and  the  soldiers  of  the  Pope,  while  the 
lance  of  an  Austrian  pandour  shall  freeze  you  with  terror. 
Let  fear  be  your  principle  in  a41  things  and  upon  all  occa- 
sions. Cast  into  the  limbo  of  the  future,  parliamentary  re- 
form, equality  of  suffrage,  retrenchment  of  taxation,  and  the 
organization  of  industry.  Marshal  your  governmental  theo- 
ries under  guard  of  your  police  constables.  Suspend  over 
our  heads  the  gloomy  and  latent  terrors  of  your  confiscations 
and  exilements.  Violate  the  sanctity  and  the  modesty  of 
our  domestic  hearths.  Calculate  at  the  price  currents  upon 
the  arm  of  your  sofas,  what  may  be  the  cost  of  tlie  con- 
science of  some  concocter  of  Charters  or  government  stipen- 
diary ;  but  respect  for  the  virtue  of  the  people  !  do  not  ex- 
hibit to  its  view  the  puppet-show  of  your  apostasies  and  the 
corruption  of  your  examples! 

"  Away  !  the  love  of  Liberty,  which,  beneath  your  im- 
pure breath,  now  fades  and  expires  in  the  soul,  will  not  be 
slow  to  take  new  life  when  the  time  shall  come  ;  and  what- 
ever you  may  do  to  brutalize  this  iToble  people,  there  will 
remain  enough  of  intelligence  to  comprehend  all  the  evil 
you  had  done,  and  justice  enough  to  punish  the  perpe- 
trators !" 

No,  France,  do  not  talk  of  punishing,  for  they  are  already 
sufficiently  punished  !     That  logic  which  tiiey  have  violated 


312  .  REVOLUTION      OF      JULY. 

recoils  upon  them  with  the  weight  of  a  mountain — the  min- 
isterial bench  has  been  to  them  a  bench  of  thorns  and  of 
troubles — those  official  carousals  of  power  have  quickly- 
cloyed  them — those  cups  of  political  drunkenness  which 
they  emptied  at  a  draught,  have  left  upon  their  lips  but  the 
sediment  of  sorrow — those  ill-omened  days  around  the  Coun- 
cil table  have  been  marked  but  by  disappointments,  rivalries 
and  intrigues — those  sleepless  nights  passed  beneath  the 
golden  ceilings  of  their  palaces,  would  be  well  exchanged 
for  the  nights  of  the  poor  man  in  his  cabin — those  slippery- 
majorities  have  slipped  through  their  fingers — those  false 
friends  have  betrayed  them — that  prince  of  whom  they 
adored  the  foot-prints  has  left  them  forever — that  people 
whom  they  have  oppressed,  repudiates  them — that  press 
which  they  have  crushed  to  the  earth,  is  now  turning  upon 
them  with  the  sting  of  the  -scorpion. 

No,  France,  do  not  say  that  they  are  not  sufficiently  pun- 
ished !  Is  it  not  to  be  so  sufficiently,  to  behold  thee  so  hum- 
ble and  insignificant,  thee  in  other  days  so  grand  and  so 
glorious  !  so  limping  in  gait  and  so  straggling  in  pace,  thee 
who  used  to  march  like  a  queen  in  the  vanguard  of  nations ! 
so  tmiorous,  so  squat,  so  crouching  in  thine  eyry  of  bastilles, 
thee  who  used  to  bear  aloft  in  thy  eagle  talons,  the  European 
thunder-bolt  of  battles ! 

No,  doubtless,  they  misconceive  thy  character !  No, 
doubtless,  they  did  not  imbue  themselves  with  thy  lofty 
spirit  and  thy  manly  genius !  But  no  more  have  they  ever, 
in  the  wildest  of  their  errors,  despaired  of  thy  fortunes.  Their 
souls  are  full,  like  ours,  with  the  sentiment  of  thy  independ- 
ence and  greatness.  Old  France,  cradle  of  our  forefathers, 
land  of  liberty,  native  country,  country,  that  eternal  vision 
of  our  hearts,  they  lov5  thee,  I  attest  it,  as  we  love  thee,  as 
thou  oughtest  to  be  loved,  as  we  love  our  sons,  as  we  love 
our  mothers,  as  the  worthy,  as  the  holy  object  of  our  pure, 
of  our  undying  affection  !  They  would  lay  down  their  prop- 
erty and  lives  as  we  would  lay  down  our  property  and  our 
lives,  to  serve,  and  to  save  thee  !     Ah !  thou  shouldst  for- 


M.      THlERri.  313 

give  much  to  those  who  shall  have  much  loved  thee !  Suf- 
fer us,  therefore,  to  offer  thee  in  expiation  of  their  past  career, 
both  our  sorrow  and  their  sacrifices,  both  our  hopes  and  their 
regrets.  Clasp  them  with  us,  I  conjure  thee,  to  thy  maternal 
bosom ;  they  will  return  to  thee,  they  loved  thee,  they  are 
thy  children,  do  not  curse  them ! 

27 


314  O'CONNELL 


O'CONNELL.* 

Scarce  had  the  brilliant  Mirabeau,  of  a  sudden  veiled  by 
the  vapors  of  the  tomb,  gone  down  in  the  full  splendor  of 
his  meridian,  than  a  new  luminary  was  seen  to  rise  upon 
the  horizon  of  Ireland. 

Mirabeau,  O'Connell !  towering  beacons,  planted  at  the 
two  extremities  of  the  revolutionary  cycle,  as  if  to  open  and 
to  close  its  ever  memorable  scenes. 

If  my  design  was  to  consider  O'Connell  but  as  a  parlia- 
mentary orator,  I  might  compare  the  British  nation  with  ours, 
and  our  tribune  with  the  British  ;  I  might  say  that  the  latter 
has  more  country-gentlemen  of  eccentric  and  inveterate 
prejudices,  and  the  former  contains  more  special  pleaders  and 
pretentious  judgers  ;  that  the  English  deputy  does  every- 
thing for  his  party,  the  French  deputy  everything  for  him- 
self; that  the  one  is  an  aristocrat  even  in  his  democracy, 
and  the  other  democratic  even  in  his  aristocracy ;  that  the 
one  is  more  proud  of  great  things,  the  other  more  boastful 
of  small  ;  that  the  one  is  always  systematic  in  his  opposi- 
tion.  and  the  other  almost  always  individual  ;  that  the  one 
is  more  sensible  to  interest,  to  calculation,  to  expediency,  to 
reason,  and  the  other  to  imagery,  to  eloquence,  to  the  sur- 
prises and  adventures  of  political  tactics  ;  that  the  one  is 
more  sarcastic  and  more  harsh,  and  the  other  more  inclined 
to  personality  of  the  keen  and  scoffing  kind ;  that  the  one  is 
more  grave  and  more  religious,  and  the  other  more  volatile 

*  This  is  the  only  foreigner  who  has  been  honored  "with  a  place  in 
the  Gallery,  He  was  probably  intended  to  exemplify  principally 
the  author's  idea  of  the  species  of  oratory  which  he  terms  popular. — 
(Tr.'s  N.) 


O'CO  N  N  E  LL.  315 

and  more  unbelieving;  that  the  one  stuffs  his  harangues 
with  citations'*'  from  Virgil,  Homer,  the  Bible,  Shakspeare, 
Milton,  and  that  the  other  could  not  mention  the  names  and 
events  of  his  own  national  history  without  making  the  mem- 
bers yawn,  or  exciting  the  laughter  of  both  the  spectators 
and  the  parliament ;  that  the  one  acts  but  with  effort,  slowly, 
upon  heads  of  much  solidity  but  massive  and  heavy,  while 
the  other  is  divined  by  the  intelligence  prompt  and  penetra- 
tive of  his  auditors,  before  the  phrase  has  quite  left  his  lips; 
that  the  one  constructs  leisurely  the  scaffolding  of  his  lengthy 
periods  of  indefinite  argumentations,  bristling  with  science, 
jurisprudence  and  literature,  whilst  the  other  would  shock 
the  simple  and  delicate  taste  of  our  nation,  by  a  heap  of  met- 
aphors, however  beautiful,  and  would  fatigue  our  intellect 
by  a  contexture  too  strong  and  stringent  of  his  reasonings. 

*  This  is  a  reproach  which  I  am  sorry  to  think  more  applicable  to 
the  speaking  in  our  own  Congress  than  to  the  oratory  of  Great 
Bi-itain,  at  least  of  the  present  clay.  It  is  painful,  indeed,  to  good' 
taste,  and  even  to  good  sense — of  which,  in  truth,  taste  is  but  the  fine 
flower — to  witness  the  unclassical  frequency  of  classical  quotations 
by  even  those  who  are  considered  among  the  most  respectable  of  our 
debaters,  and  really  not  illiterate  men.  But  worse  still  than  the  fre- 
quency is  its  commonplace  crudity :  you  see  the  material  quite  raw 
from  Plutarch's  Lives,  or  Lempriere's  Dictionary,  or  some  other  of 
the  school  books,  and  in  fact  worked  up  like  a  school-boy's  exercise, 
and  no  very  ripe  school-boy's.  If  I  remember,  it  was  no  less  a  per- 
sonage than  Mr.  Benton  who  found  or  forced  occasion  to  turn  into 
a  speech  on  the  '•  Oregon  question"  the  content^  of  entire  pages  of 
Homer-s  Odyssey — what  translation  did  not  appear.  Nor  is  this 
primitive  passion  to  deck  their  nakedness  with  scraps  of  finery  con- 
fined to  our  oi-ators  of  the  less  cultivated  party.  One,  perhaps  two, 
of  the  Boston  representatives,  I  believe,  are  remarkable  in  this  way. 
Probably  they  deem  it  called  for  by  the  character  of  the  "  Athens  of 
America."  But  that  this  is  not  exactly  the  atticism  of  the  Athens 
of  Attica,  they  could  hardly  have  failed  to  know,  had  they  really 
read  to  any  purpose  what  they  so  freely  quote  to  quite  as  little. 

Do  we  find  anything  of  this  sort  in  the  severely  simple  style  of 
Webster  ?  Yet  Webster  has  more  classical  literature  in  his  mere 
memory  than  any  dozen  of  those  who  are  most  profuse  of  it  probably 
ever  saw  in  the  original.  (Tk.'s  N.) 


816  O'CONNELL. 

I  might  add  that  the  English  nation  has  more  force,  and 
the  French  more  grace.  There  more  genius,  here  more  intel- 
lect. There  more  character,  here  more  imagination.  There 
more  political  prudence,  here  more  impulsive  generosity. 
There,  more  forecast,  here  more  actuality.  There,  more 
profundity  of  philosophical  speculation  and  more  respect  for 
the  dignity  of  the  human  species,  here  more  propensity  to 
contemplate  one's  self  coquettishly,  in  the  glass  of  his  ora- 
tory, without  taking  account  of  the  merits  and  perfections  of 
others.  The  one  in  fine  of  these  nations  more  jealous  of 
liberty,  the  other  of  equality.  The  one  more  proud,  the 
other  more  vain.  The  one  besotted  with  bigotry,  the  other 
sceptical  in  almost  all  things.  The  one  capable  of  prepar- 
ing  and  awaiting  the  triumph  of  its  cause,  the  other  precip- 
itating the  occasion  and  impatient  to  vanquish,  no  matter 
under  what  leaders.  The  one  retiring  into  some  seques- 
tered corner  to  indulge  its  dumps,  the  other  capering  about 
and  at  the  first  preludings  of  the  fiddle,  mixing  in  all  sorts 
of  quadrilles.  The  Englishman  computing  how  much  his 
blood  should  bring  him  of  territory  and  influence,  and  his 
money  of  interest,  the  Frenchman  squandering  the  one  with- 
out knowing  where,  and  the  other  without  knowing  why.* 

*  I  do  not  assent  to  the  justice,  in  all  respects,  of  this  elaborate  pa- 
rallel. The  writer  seems  to  me  to  view  the  English  through  the  pre- 
judices of  his  nation,  and  the  French  through  the  prejudices  of  his . 
party.  Not  that,  in  this  instance,  the  error  is  unfavorable  to  the 
English,  but  the  contrary.  I  allude  particularly  to  the  superiority 
assigned  them  in  point  of  philosophical  profundity.  The  French 
are  generally  underrated,  sometimes  even  by  their  own  writers,  in 
this  respect ;  owing,  I  think,  to  the  character  of  comprehensiveness, 
of  method,  of  completeness,  of  rotundity,  so  to  speak,  of  the  national 
intellect.  There  is  an  illusory  affinity  between  irregularity  and 
magnitude.  Of  figures  containing  equal  areas,  the  more  regular  ap- 
pear the  smallest.  A  circle  is  smaller  to  the  vulgar  eye  than  a  sca- 
lene triangle  of  scarce  three-fourths  its  dimensions.  There  is  iu 
reference  to  the  execution  too,  perhaps,  a  confirmative  illusion  of 
sentiment ;  what  is  gracefully  regular,  (the  circle  for  example,)  sug- 
gests ease;  what  is  grandly  eccentric,  (the  triangle,)  effect.  But  the 
fact  is  well  known  to  be  immeasurably  the  other  way.— (Tr.'s  N.) 


O'CO  N  N  E  LL.  317 

I  should  say,  in  conclusion,  that  both,  in  spite  of  their  de- 
fects and  their  vices,  are  the  expression  of  a  great  people, 
and  that  so  loner  as  the  Eno-lish  tribune  shall  rise  amid  the 
seas  in  its  proud  and  illustrious  island,  and  so  long  as  the 
French  tribune  shall  remain  erect  amid  the  rubbish  of  aris- 
tocracy and  despotism,  the  liberty  of  the  world  is  in  no  dan- 
ger of  perishing. 

But  it  is  not  the  parliamentary  orator  that  I  am  here  to 
draw ;  it  is  not  Demosthenes  pleading  his  own  cause  in  the 
oligarchical  forum  of  Athens  ;  it  is  not  Mirabeau  throwing 
off  the  splendors  of  his  magnificent  language  in  the  hall  of 
Versailles,  before  the  three  orders  of  clergy,  nobility,  and 
commons;  it  is  not  Burke,  Pitt,  Fox,  Brougham,  Canning, 
shivering  the  glass-work  of  Whitehall  with  the  thunders  of 
their  academical  eloquence  :  it  is  another  kind  of  eloquence, 
an  eloquence  without  name,  prodigious,  transporting,  sponta- 
neous, and  the  like  of  which  has  been  never  heard  by  the  an- 
cients or  the  moderns ;  it  is  O'Connell,  the  great  O'Connell, 
erect  upon  the  soil  of  his  country,  with  the  heavens  for  dome, 
the  boundless  plain  for  tribune,  a  whole  people  for  auditory, 
and  for  subject  that  people,  incessantly  that  people,  and  for 
echo  the  universal  acclamations  of  the  multitude,  resembling 
the  hollow-toned  mutterings  of  the  tempest,  or  the  dashing 
of  the  billows  against  the  rock-barred  beach  of  the  ocean. 

Never,  in  any  age  or  any  country,  has  any  man  obtained 
over  his  nation  an  empire  so  sovereign,  so  absolute,  so  en- 
tire. Ireland  impersonates  herself  in  O'Connell.  He  is, 
in  some  sort,  himself  alone,  her  army,  her  parliament,  her 
ambassador,  her  prince,  her  liberator,  her  apostle,  her  god. 
His  ancestors,  descendants  of  the  Kings  of  Ireland,  wore  at 
their  side  the  falchion  of  battles.  He,  a  tribune  of  the  peo- 
ple, carries  likewise  the  falchion  of  other  battles,  the  fal- 
chion of  eloquence,  more  redoubtable  than  the  sword. 

Behold  O'Connell  with  his  people,  for  they  are  veritably 
his  :  he  lives  in  their  life,  he  smiles  in  their  joys,  he  bleeds 
in  their  v/ounds,  he  weeps  in  their  sorrows.  He  transports 
them  from  fear  to  hope,  from  servitude  to  liberty,  from  the 

27* 


318  ,       O  '  C  O  N  N  E  L  L  . 

fact  to  the  law,  from  law  to  duty,  from  supplication  to  invec- 
tive, and  from  anger  to  mercy  and  commiseration.  He 
orders  this  whole  people  to  kneel  down  upon  the  earth  and 
pray,  and  instantly  they  kneel  and  pray  ;  to  lift  their  eyes 
to  heaven,  and  they  lift  them  ;  to  execrate  their  tyrants,  and 
they  execrate ;  to  chant  hymns  to  liberty,  and  they  chant 
them  ;  to  sign  petitions  for  the  reform  of  abuses,  to  unite 
their  forces,  to  forget  their  feuds,  to  embrace  their  brothers, 
to  pardon  their  enemies,  and  they  sign,  unite,  forget,  em- 
brace, pardon  ! 

Our  Berryer  dwells  but  in  the  upper  regions  of  politics. 
He  breathes  but  the  air  of  aristocracy.  His  name  has  not 
descended  into  the  workshop  and  the  cottage.  He  has  not 
drank  of  the  cup  of  equality.  He  has  never  handled  the 
rough  implements  of  the  mechanics.  He  has  never  inter- 
chano-ed  his  words  v/ith  their  words.  He  has  never  felt 
the  grasp  of  their  horny  hands.  He  has  never  applied  his 
heart  to  their  heart,  and  felt  its  beatings  !  But  O'Connell, 
hov/  cordially  popular  !  how  entirely  Irish  !  What  magni- 
ficent stature  !  what  athletic  form  !  what  vigor  of  lungs  ! 
what  expansion  of  heart  in  that  animated  and  blooming 
countenance  !  what  sweetness  in  those  large  blue  eyes  ! 
what  joviality  !  what  inspiration  !  what  wit-flashings  inex- 
haustible !  How  nobly  he  bears  his  head  upon  that  mus- 
cular neck,  his  head  tossed  backward  and  exhibiting  in 
every  lineament  his  proud  independence ! 

What  renders  him  incomparable  with  the  orators  of  his 
own  country  as  well  as  of  ours,  is,  that  without  pre-medita- 
tion,  and  by  the  sole  impetuosity,  the  mere  energy  of  his 
powerful  and  victorious  nature,  he  enters  body  and  soul  into 
his  subject,  and  appears  to  be  rather  possessed  by  it  liimself 
than  to  possess  it.  Flis  heart  runs  over,  it  moves  by  bounds, 
by  plunges,  until  the  spectator  can  almost  reckon  its  every 
pulsation. 

Like  a  full-blooded  courser  suddenly  checke-d  upon  his 
sinewy  and  trembling  haunches,  so  O'Connell  can  stop  short 
in  the  unbridled  career  of  his  eloquence,  turn  sharply  round 


O'CONNELL.     ^  319 

e 

and  resume  it.  So  much  has  his  genius  of  presence,  of 
elasticity  and  of  vigor  ! 

You  would  think  at  first  that  he  falters  and  is  going  to 
sink  beneath  the  weight  of  the  internal  god  by  whom  he  is 
agitated.  Presently,  he  recovers  himself,  a  halo  around  his 
brow  and  his  eye  full  of  flame,  and  his  voice,  which  has  no- 
thing  of  mortal,  begins  to  reverberate  through  the  air  and  to 
fill  all  space. 

How  explain,  how  define  that  extraordinary  genius  which 
finds  no  repose  in  a  body  forever  in  motion,  and  which  is 
equal  to  the  dispatch  of  a  large  professional  business,  civil 
and  criminal,  to  the  laborious  investigation  of  the  laws,  to 
the  immense  correspondence  of  the  Association,  to  the  agi- 
tation nightly  and  daily  of  seven  millions  of  men — that  soul 
of  fire  which  heats  O'Connell  without  consuming  him — that 
intellect  of  so  incredible  an  agility,  which  touches  every 
subject  without  tarnishing  it,  which  never  tires  and  which 
amplifies  itself  by  all  the  space  it  has  traversed,  which  does 
not  divide  but  multiply  itself  by  diffusion,  which  draws  new 
vigor  and  force  from  its  very  exhaustion,  which  wastes  con- 
stantly without  the  necessity  of  repairing  itself,  which  sur- 
renders and  abandons  itself  to  the  impetuosity  of  passion 
without  losing  for  an  instant  its  self-possession, — that  phe- 
nomenon of  an  old  age  so  green  and  so  vigorous,  that  puis- 
sant life  which  has  the  vitality  of  several  others,  that  inex- 
haustible efflux  of  an  exceptional  nature  without  parallel 
and  without  precedent. 

Had  O'Connell  marched,  his  claymore  in  hand,  to  the  en- 
counter of  despotism,  he  would  have  been  crushed  beneath 
the  forces  of  the  British  aristocracy  ;  but  he  intrenched  and 
fortified  himself  behind  the  bulwark  of  the  law  as  in  an 
impregnable  fortress.  He  is  bold,  but  he  is  perhaps  still 
more  adroit  than  bold.  He  advances,  but  he  retires.  He 
will  go  to  the  utmost  limits  of  his  rights,  but  not  an  inch 
beyond.  He  mails  himself  in  the  buckler  of  chicanery  and 
battles  upon  this  ground,  foot  to  foot,  by  means  of  captious 
interpretations  and  a  network  of  subtleties  which  he  casts 


320  i.o'cONNELL. 

around  his  adversaries,  who  no  more  can  extricate  themselves 
from  its  entangling  meshes.  Scholastic,  hair-splitting,  wily, 
shiftful,  a  keen  attorney,  he  snatches  by  trick  whatever  he 
cannot  wrest  by  force.  Where  others  would  sink,  he  saves 
himself.     His  skill  defends  him  from  his  impetuosity. 

Meanwhile  the  specialty  of  his  end  does  not  divert  his  at- 
tention from  the  general  interests  of  humanity.  He  desires 
economy  in  the  public  expenditures,  because  it  is  the  duty 
of  every  government.  He  desires  freedom  of  worship,  be- 
cause it  is  the  will  of  the  human  conscience.  He  wishes 
the  triumph  of  ideas  because  it  is  the  only  triumph  which 
sheds  no  blood,  the  only  one  which  rests  upon  opinion  and 
justice,  and  above  all  the  only  one  which  endures.* 

He  is  poetical  to  lyrical  sublimity,  or  familiar  to  conver- 
sational simplicity.  He  attracts  to  him  his  auditory  and 
transports  it  upon  the  platform  of  the  theatre,  or  at  times 
descends  himself  and  mingles  with  the  spectators.  He  does 
not  leave  the  stage  for  a  moment  without  action  or  recitation. 
He  distributes  to  each  his  part.  He  seats  himself  in  judg- 
ment. He  questions  and  he  condemns.  The  people  ratify, 
lift  hands  and  imagine  themselves  in  a  court-house. 

Sometimes  O'Connell  brings  the  internal  drama  of  the 
family  to  subserve  the  external  drama  of  public  affairs.  He 
introduces  his  aged  father,  his  ancestors  and  the  ancestry  of 
the  people.  He  expedites  his  orders  ;  he  commands  the 
audience  to  sit,  to  stand,  or  to  prostrate  itself;  he  assumes 
the  direction  of  the  debates,  and  the  police  of  the  assem- 
blage ;  he  presides,  he  reads,  he  reports,  he  offers  motions, 
petitions,  requisitions;  he  arranges,  he  improvisates  narra- 
tions, monologues,  dialogues,  prosopopeias,  interludes,  plots 

*  The  allusion  is,  as  the  reader  perceives,  to  the  celebrated  "  moral- 
force  doctrine"  of  O'Connell;  a  doctrine  which  constitutes  his 
strongest  title  to  the  general  gratitude  of  posterity.  What  it  asserts 
is,  in  principle,  the  subordination  of  the  physical  and  brutal  to  the 
spiritual  and  rational  in  human  nature.  The  principle  itself  may 
have  been  enunciated  long  before  O'Connell ;  but  the  real  benefactor 
in  such  cases,  is  he  who  gives  to  the  barren  abstraction  an  actuality  of 
some  sort,  in  popular  opinion,  if  not  in  political  institution. — Tk.'s  N. 


O'CONNELL.  321 

and  counterplots.  He  knows  that  the  Irishman  is  at  once 
mirthful  and  melancholy,  that  he  likes  at  the  same  time  the 
figurative,  the  brilliant  and  the  sarcastic,  and  so  he  breaks 
the  laughter  by  tears,  the  sublime  by  the  ridiculous.  He 
assails  in  a  body  the  Lords  of  parliament,  and,  chasing- 
them  from  thei*  aristocratic  covert,  he  tracks  them  one  by 
one  as  the  hunter  docs  the  wild  beast.  He  rallies  them  un- 
mercifully, abuses  them,  travesties  and  delivers  them  over, 
stuck  with  horns  and  ludicrous  gibbosities,  to  the  hootings 
and  hisses  of  the  crowd.  If  interpellated  by  any  of  the  au- 
ditors, he  stops,  grapples  his  interrupter,  floors  him,  and  re- 
turns briskly  to  his  speech.  It  is  thus  that  with  marvellous 
suppleness,  he  follows  the  undulations  of  that  popular  sea, 
now  agitated  and  obstreperous  beneath  the  strokes  of  his  tri- 
dent, now  ruffled  by  the  breath  of  the  gentle  breeze,  now 
placid,  lucent  and  golden  with  the  sunbeams,  like  a  bath  of 
the  luxurious  sirens. 

O'Connell  is  neither  Whig,  nor  Tory,  nor  Radical  in  the 
English  sense.  Accordingly  Whigs,  Tories  and  Radicals  bear 
him  that  inveterate  hatred  and  that  haughty  scorn  of  a  con- 
quering people  for  the  subject  of  the  conquered,  of  an  Eng- 
lishman for  the  Irishman,  of  a  Protestant  for  the  Catholic. 
But  this  hatred,  this  scorn,  these  insolences  cannot  daunt 
him.  Unlike  our  orators,  so  sentimental  and  so  fastidious, 
because  they  are  without  conviction,  without  henrt  and 
without  faith,  O'Connell  never  doubts  of  the  triumph  of  his 
cause,  and  even  in  the  House  of  Commons,  looking  his  ad- 
versaries firmly  in  the  face,  he  exclaims  : 

"  I  will  never  be  guilty  of  the  crime  of  despairing  of 
my  country ;  and  to-day,  after  two  centuries  of  suffering, 
here  I  stand  amidst  you  in  this  hall,  repeating  the  same 
complaints,  demanding  the  same  justice  which  was  claimed 
by  our  fathers ;  but  no  longer  with  the  humble  voice  of  the 
suppliant,  but  with  the  sentiment  of  our  force  and  the  con- 
viction that  Ireland  will  henceforth  find  means  to  do,  without 
you,  what  you  shall  have  refused  to  do  for  her !  I  make  no 
compromise  with  you ;  I  want  the  same  rights  for  us  that 


322  O'CONNELL. 

you  enjoy,  the  same  municipal  system  for  Ireland  as  for 
England  and  Scotland  :  otherwise,  what  is  a  union  with 
you  ?  A  union  upon  parchment !  Well,  we  will  tear  this 
parchment  to  pieces,  and  the  Empire  will  be  sundered  !" 

This  is  high-toned,  and  a  man  must  feel  himself  almost  a 
king  to  hold  such  language  !  ♦ 

Speak  not  to  this  man  of  a  different  subject.  His  patriotic 
soul,  all  capacious  as  it  is,  can  contain  no  other.  He  is  not, 
even  in  London  and  in  the  parliament  of  the  three  King- 
doms, a  member  of  parliament.  He  is  but  an  Irishman.  He 
has  but  Ireland,  all  Ireland  in  his  heart,  in  his  thought,  in 
his  memory,  on  his  lips,  in  his  ear. 

"  I  hear,"  says  he,  "  day  after  day  the  plaintive  voice  of 
Ireland,  crying.  Am  I  to  be  kept  forever  waiting  and  for- 
ever suffering?  No,  fellow  countrymen,  you  will  be  left  to 
suffer  no  longer  :  you  will  not  liave  in  vain  asked  justice 
from  a  people  of  brothers.  England  is  no  longer  that  coun- 
try of  prejudices  where  the  mere  name  of  popery  excited 
every  breast  and  impelled  to  iniquitous  cruelties.  The  rep- 
resentatives of  Ireland  have  carried  the  Reform  bill,  which 
has  enlarged  the  franchises  of  the  English  people ;  they 
will  be  heard  with  favor  in  asking  their  colleagues  to  render 
justice  to  Ireland.  But  should  it  prove  otherwise,  should 
parliament  still  continue  deaf  to  our  prayer,  then  we  will 
appeal -to  the  English  nation,  and  if  the  nation  too  should 
suffer  itself  to  be  blinded  by  its  prejudices,  we  will  enter  the 
fastnesses  of  our  mountains  and  take  counsel  but  of  our 
energy,  our  courage  and  our  despair." 

It  is  impossible  to  invoke  in  terms  more  forcible  and 
touching  the  reason,  the  conscience  and  the  gratitude  of  the 
English  people,  and  to  mingle  more  artfully  supplication 
with  menace,  than  in  this  beautiful  passage. 

But  you  feel  that  this  gigantic  orator  is  straitened,  is  sti- 
fled under  this  cupola  of  the  English  Parliament,  like  a  huge 
vegetable  under  a  bell-glass.  That  his  breast  may  distend, 
his  stature  tower  and  his  voice  thunder,  he  must  have  the 
air,  the  sun  and  the  soil  of  Ireland.     It  is  only  on  touching 


O'CONNELL.  323 

that  sacred  land,  that  land  of  his  country,  that  he  respires 
and  unfolds  himself.  It  is  but  there,  in  presence  of  his  peo- 
ple, that  his  revolutionary  eloquence,  his  defying  eloquence, 
launches  aloft,  unbinds  and  radiates  its  thousand  splendors 
like  the  immense  sheaves  of  a  fire- work.  It  is  but  then  that 
he  pours  out  the  boiling  torrents  of  that  prodigious  irony 
which  avenges  the  slave  and  desolates  the  tyrant ! 

Not  that  his  raillery  is  keen  ;  it  does  not  pierce  like  a 
needle.  Like  the  ancient  sacrificer,  he  lifts  his  axe,  he 
strikes  the  victim  between  the  two  horns,  just  in  the  middle 
of  the  forehead  :  the  animal  emits  a  long  groan  and  drops. 

He  should  be  seen  mustering  his  indignation  and  his  en- 
ergies, when  he  recounts  the  long  history  of  his  country's 
misfortunes,  her  oppressions,  her  woes ;  when  he  wakes 
from  the  tombs,  those  generous  heroes,  those  unswerving 
^  citizens,  who  have  ensanguined  with  their  blood  the  scaf- 
folds of  Ireland,  its  plains  and  its  lakes ;  when  he  is  ex- 
hibiting to  his  brave  adherents  the  lamentable  spectacle  of 
iheir  liberty  lacerated  by  the  sword  of  England ;  the  soil  of 
iheir  fathers  in  the  hands  of  those  tyrants,  the  government 
instituted  by  them  and  for  them,  for  them  alone  ;  the  tribu- 
nals of  justice  crammed  with  their  creatures  ;  the  parlia- 
ments sold,  the  laws  written  in  blood,  the  soldiers  turned 
into  executioners,  the  prisons  full ;  the  peasantry  ground  by 
taxation,  brutalized  by  ignorance,  emaciated  by  sickness  and 
famine,  haggard,  bowed  to  the*  earth,  and  extended  on  a 
litter  of  fetid  straw  ;  the  hovels  hard  by  the  palaces ;  the 
insolence  of  the  aristocracy  ;  idleness  without  charge  and 
without  pity ;  labor  without  remuneration  and  without  re- 
spite ;  martial  law  re-established  ;  habeas  corpus  suspended  ; 
the  administration  overrun  with  strangers  ;  nationality  pro- 
scribed ;  religion  incapacitating  for  either  judges,  or  juries, 
or  witnesses,  or  landholders,  or  school-teachers,  or  even  con- 
stables, under  penalty  of  radical  nullity  and  even  capital 
punishment ;  the  Catholic  churches  empty,  bare,  without  or- 
naments ;  their  priests  beggars,  wanderers,  outlaws  :  the  An- 
glican church,  the  while,  with  joyous  brow  and  heart,  hav- 


324  O  '  C  O  N  N  E  L  L  . 

ing  her  hands  stuck  deep  in  her  sacks  and  coffers  of  gold. 
Then  roll  down  the  tears  from  every  eye,  amid  a  solemn  and 
fearful  silence,  and  that  whole  people,  overwhelmed,  heart- 
broken with  its  sobbings,  revolves  in  its  heaving  bosom  the 
direful  day  of  vengeance. 

Meanwhile  let  England,  from  the  elevation  of  her  palaces, 
and  upon  her  beds  of  purple  and  down,  give  trembling  ear 
to  the  meanings  of  that  Enceladus  who  mutters  beneath  the 
mountain  which  holds  him  imprisoned.  He  traverses  its 
subterranean  recesses,  he  mounts  upon  his  legs,  he  upheaves 
with  his  back  the  kindling  furnaces  of  democracy ;  and  in 
the  terror  of  an  approaching  eruption,  England  is  stricken 
with  dismay,  the  fiery  flood  is  already  upon- her  feet,  and 
,  she  retires  precipitately  lest  the  volcano  burst  and  blow  her 
into  the  air.  • 

What  cares  this  turbulent  orator,' this  savage  child  of  the 
mountains,  for  Aristotle  and  rhetoric,  for  drawing-room  po- 
liteness, for  the  proprieties  of  grammar,  or  the  urbanity  of 
language !  He  is  the  people,  he  speaks  like  the  people. 
He  has  the  same  prejudices,  the  same  religion,  the  same  pas- 
sions, the  same  thought,  the  same  heart,  a  heart  that  beats 
through  every  pulse  for  his  belovdd  Ireland,  a  heart  that  hates 
with  all  its  energies  the  tyrannical  Albion.  See  you  not 
how  he  penetrates,  how  he  merges  himself  into  the  very  vitals 
of  his  cherished  countrymen,  in  order  to  feel  and  to  palpitate, 
as  they  palpitate  and  feel.*  H^ow  he  puts  himself  in  their 
shackles,  how  he  binds  around  him  the  irons  of  their  servi- 
tude, that  he  may  the  better  blush  with  them  for  their  bond- 
age, and  the  better  burst  its  chain.  How  he  plunges  into 
the  glories  of  their  by-gone  days  !  Then,  leads  them  back 
to  their  living  sores,  their  desolation,  their  political  helotism, 
their  social  misery,  their  destitution,  their  degradation  !  How 
he  reanimates  again,  how  he  refreshes  them  with  the  relig- 
ious breathings  of  his  hopes  !  How  he  cheers  them  with  the 
proud  accents  of  liberty  and  overwhelms  them  so  effectually 
with  his  voice,  his  exclamations,  his  denunciations,  his  soul, 
his  arms  and  his  whole  body,  that  at  the  end  of  the  discourse, 


O'CONNELL.  325 

this  orator  and  this  entire  audience  of  fifty  thousand  men 
have  but  one  body,  one  soul,  one  cry  of — "  Old  Ireland  for- 
ever !" 

Yes,  it  is  Ireland,  his  best-beloved  Ireland  that  he  has  set 
as  upon  an  altar,  in  the  centre  of  all  his  hopes,  of  all  his 
affections.  He  sees  but  her,  he  hears  but  her,  in  Parlia- 
ment, in  church,  at  the  bar,  at  the  domestic  fireside,  in  the 
club-room,  at  the  banquet-table,  amid  his  triumphal  orations, 
absent,  present,  in  all  places,  at  all  times  !  He  reverts  to 
her  unceasingly  by  a  thousand  avenues,  routes  bordered  with 
abysses  and  precipices,  lofty  mountains  and  lovely  lakes, 
and  fertile  plains  and  winding  meadows.  Yes,  thou  it  is, 
green  Erin,  emerald  of  the  seas,  whose  cincture  he  unbinds 
upon  the  sands  of  the  beach.  Thou  who  appearest  to  him 
seated  on  the  spiral  summit  of  the  temples  of  Catholicism, 
thou  whom  he  hears  in  the  murmu rings  of  the  storm,  thou 
whom  he  respires  in  the  perfumed  breeze  of  the  zephyrs  ! 
Thou  whom  anon  he  imagines  drawing  against  the  Saxon 
thy  formidable  claymore,  to  the  sound  of  the  thunder  of  bat- 
tles !  Thou  whom  he  prefers,  poor  beggar  though  thou  art, 
with  thy  rags,  thy  shrivelled  body,  and  thy  straw-covered 
hovels,  to  the  glittering  palaces  of  aristocracy,  to  insolent 
England,  to  the  queen  of  the  ocean  !  Thou  of  whom  he 
contemplates,  with  respectful  pity,  the  languishing  graces 
and  the  hollow  and  faded  cheeks,  because  thou  art  the  tomb 
of  his  ancestors,  the  cradle  of  his  sons,  the  glory  of  his  life, 
the  immortality  of  his  name,  the  palm-tree  blossomed  with 
his  eloquence,  because  thou  lovest  thy  children  and  lovest 
him,  the  greatest  of  them  ;  because  thou  sufferest  for  them, 
for  him,  because  thou  art  Ireland,  because  thou  art  his 
country ! 

Our  French  parliamentary  speakers  do  not  succeed  in 
drawing  a  single  vote  in  the  wake  of  their  orations.  They 
have  witnessed  so  many  revolutions,  served  so  many  gov- 
ernments, subverted  so  many  ministries,  that  they  have 
ceased  to  put  faith  in  either  liberty  or  power.  They  are 
neither  Saintsimonians,  nor  Christians,  nor  Turks,  nor  Ana- 


326  O'CONNELL. 

baptists,  nor  Vaudois,  nor  Albigenses,  they  believe  in  no  re- 
ligion, absolutely  none.  But  tor  O'Connell,  he  has  a  firm 
faith  in  the  wondrous  prestiges  of  his  art;  he  believes  un- 
doubtingly  in  the  future  emancipation  of  Ireland.  He  be- 
lieves in  the  God  of  the  Christians,  and  it  is  because  he  be- 
lieves, because  he  hopes,  that  this  eagle  sustains  his  flight  sub- 
lime in  the  upper  regions  of  eloquence,  upon  pinions  already 
frozen  with  the*ice  of  so  many  winters.  He  never  sepa- 
rates tlie  triumph  of  religion  from  the  triumph  of  liberty  ! 
He  thrills  with  deliglit,  he  is  transported,  rapt  in  his  magnifi- 
cent visions  of  the  future,  and  his  inspired  words  have  some- 
thing of  the  grandeur  of  the  firmament  which  over-canopies 
him,  of  the  air  and  space  which  surround  him,  and  of  the 
popular  waves  which  pour  along  in  his  footsteps,  when  he 
exclaims  after  the  Clare  election : 

"  In  presence  of  my  God,  and  with  the  most  profound  sen- 
timent of  the  responsibility  attached  to  the  solemn  and  aw- 
ful duties  which  you  have  twice  imposed  upon  me,  fellow- . 
countrymen,  1  accept  them  !  and  I  find  the  assurance  of 
duly  discharging  them,  not  in  myself,  but  in  you.  The  men 
of  Clare  v/ell  know  that  the  only  basis  of  liberty  is  religion. 
They  have  triumphed,  because  the  voice  which  was  raised 
for  the  country,  had  first  been  breathed  in  prayer  to  the 
Lord.  Now,  hymns  of  liberty  are  heard  throughout  the 
land ;  they  play  around  the  hills,  they  fill  the  vales,  they 
murmur  in  our  streams,  and  the  torrents  with  voice  of  thun- 
der re-echo  back  to  the  mountains  :  '  Ireland  is  free  !'  " 


BIOGRAPHICAL    ADDENDA. 


MIRABEAU. 

HoNORE  Gabriel  Riquetti,  Compte  de  Mirabeau,  was 
born  at  Bignon,  i:>ear  Nemours,  on  the  9th  of  March,  1749. 
His  father,  Victor  Riquetli,  was  a  French  marquis  of  an  an- 
cient and  honorable  house,  which  counted  among  the  sup- 
porters of  its  line,  many  characters  of  remarkable  valor 
and  wisdom.  The  family  name,  Riquetti,  or  Arrighetti, 
was  of  "  Florentine  origin.-  In  1267  and  1268,  during 
one  of  those  revolutions,  to  which  the  constant  struggles 
between  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy  gave  rise,  the  family  of 
the  Arrighetti,  conspicuous  in  the  party  of  the  Gibellines, 
were  driven  from  Florence.  The  act  of  proscription  men- 
tions the  names  of  nine  individuals  of  this  family,  and  among 
others,  Azzucius  ArriglietU,  Films  Goerardi,  et  omnes  ?nas- 
culi  descendentes  ex  eis.'^  This  Azzucius  retired,  upon  his 
banishment,  into  Provence,*  and  the  filiation  continued  from 
him,  in  a  direct  line,  down  to  the  subject  of  the  present 
notice.  •"  The  Arrighetti  appeared  in  Provence,  with  the 
rank  and  spirit  of  the  high  nobles  of  those  days.  They 
carefully  preserved  the  pre-eminence  of  their  order,  pur- 
chased fiefs,  held  military  commissions,  founded  hospitals, 
and  endowed  religious  houses.  Their  motto  was  "  Juvat 
FietasJ' 

"  Ever  since  I  can  remember,"  says  Mirabeau,  in  his 
Ivife  of  his  grandfather,  John  Antony,  Marquis  of  Mira- 
beau, "  I  have  seen  my  father  and  uncle  celebrate  and 

*  Country  of  tlie  Rhone  River,  South-eastern  wine  country  of 
France. 


328  13  I  O  G  II  A  iMl  I  C  A  L      ADDENDA. 

honor  the  memoiy  of  our  ancesto.rs,  several  of  whom  were 
illustrious,  not  througli  courtly  favor,  or  the  wages  of  servil- 
ity, but  by  manly  virtues,  and  services  rendered  to  their 
country,  the  true  and  only  source  of  real  fame."* 

The  history  of  this  family  is  a  proof  against  all  hypothe- 
ses, that  virtues  may  be  transmitted  by  inheritance ;  and 
that  by  judicious  marriages,  and  the  maintaining  a  proper 
pride  of  ancestry,  an  illustrious  house  may  perpetuate  it- 
self through  every  vicissitude  of  fortune. 

It  is  remarkable  that,  during  a  period  of  nearly  six  hun- 
dred years^  but  one  of  this  family  entered  holy  orders  ;  and 
even  this  one  against  his  proper  nature  and  inclination. 
The  vocation  of  the  race  was  at  first  commerce,  then  war, 
and  finally  literature,  and  politics ;  none  of  them  attained 
to  great  commands  in  the  army,  more  through  want  of 
certain  courtier-like  qualities,  tlian  of  those  of  a  great  com- 
mander. 

Peter,  the  son  of  the  first  who  arrived  from  Florence, 
settled  in  the  confines  of  France,  on  the  summit  of  a  moun- 
tain, in  Seyne,  a  border  town  among  the  Alps.  He  founded 
a  hospital  immediately  on  his  arrival ;  and  in  the  course  of 
the  foUovv^ing  centuries,  various  other  religious  houses  were 
founded  by  his  descendants.  Peter  married  Sibilla  of  Fos, 
whose  beauty  and  accomplishments  were  celebrated  by  the 
Troubadours;  a  fact  which  shows  the  great  estimation  in 
which  the  family  were  held. 

Honorius,  the  first  of  that  name,  settled  in  Marseilles, 
where  the  Riquetti  engaged  in  commerce.  "  Those  days," 
continues  Mirabeau,  "  did  not  resemble  the  periods  when 
power  and  the  curb  of  obedience  being  concentrated  in  the 
sovereign  authority,  a  few  metropolitan  cities,  from  the  in- 
creased means  of  communication,  and  the  great  influx  of 
precious  metals  from  the  mines  of  the.  new  world,  reduced 
every  other  city  to  the-  rank  and  denomination  of  second- 
rate  towns.  In  those  days  a  republican  spirit  pervaded 
every   town,  more  especially  the    prosperous  commercial 

*  See  Memoirs  of  Mirabeau.     . 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  329 

cities."     Marseilles,   the  principal   entrepot  of  the    Medi- 
terranean commerce,  though  subject  to  the  monarchy,  re- 
tained  its  republican  privileges.     "  Trade,"  says  Mirabeau, 
*'  which  assumes  the  name  of  commerce  in  maritime  towns, 
is  naturally  inclined   towards   republicanism.     The  lodge, 
the  exchange,  the  bank — all  those  different  assemblies  of 
merchants,  form  a  kind  of  democratic  senate."     In  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  energy  of  the  Riquettis  did  not  fail  to  seize 
upon  the  true  means  of  popularity  and  influence.     They 
offered  themselves  for   public   offices,    and   were  soon  the 
leading  family  in  the  city.     They  engaged  in  commerce, 
and  accumulated   great  wealth.     A  certain   bishop  having, 
in  a  public  document,  named  John  de  Riquetti,  "  a  trader 
of  Marseilles,"   as  though   despising  his  occupation,   John 
replied  :   "  With  I'egard  to  the  title  of  trader  of  Marseilles, 
which  would  be  derogatory  to  no  one,  since  our  kings  have 
even  invited  nobles  to  become  participators  in  the  commerce 
of  this  city,  I   am,  or  was  a  police  merchant,  in  the  same 
manner  that  the  bishop  is  a  vender  of  holy  water.     It  will 
be   remembered,  that  I   was  first  consul  of  Marseilles,  in 
1562  ;  and  every  one  knows,  that  to  fill  this  office,  a  man 
must  be  of  noble  lineage."     It  must  not  be  forgotten  that, 
though   John  de  Riquetti  was   a  stanch   Catholic,   the  re- 
spect for  popes  and  bishops  was  not  strong  in  Provence  ; 
and  these  were  the   times  of  the   Reformation,  when,  if  it 
had  not  been  for  Spanish  bigotry,  and  the  power  of  the  Em- 
pire, the  cities  of  Europe  would  have  thrown  off  Catholicism 
at  once,  and  together.     In  a  history  of  Provence,  the  Sieur 
de  Mirabeau,  "  enjoying  an  honorable  rank  in  Marseilles," 
is  named  "  one  of  the  richest  merchants  in  the  city." 

This  family,  under  their  leader,  John  de  Riquetti,  ren- 
dered Marseilles  to  Henrv  IV.,  when  he  became  Kin^  of 
France.  "  Thus,"  says  Mirabeau,  commenting  on  the 
troubled  life  of  his  ancestor,  "  a  long  existence,  however 
eventful,  always  brings  consolation  to  virtue.  Times  of 
discord  and  anarchy  have  one  advantage  among  a  thousand 
evils :    men   are  formed   and    put   to   the   test ;    numerous 

28* 


330  BIOGRAPHICAL  'addenda. 

families  occome  a  positive  good,  if  it  bo  only  as  rallying- 
points ;  the  turbulent  activity  of  youth  finds  useful  employ- 
ment ;  and  old  age  is  revered,  consulted,  believed,  and 
obeyed."  And  in  another  place  he  observes:  "  We  cannot 
suppose  that  any  one  will  question  the  fact,  that  in  all  coun- 
tries,, and  at  all  times,  there  live  and  die,  remote  from  the 
bustle  of  public  affairs,  a  number  of  men  very  superior  to 
those  who  play  a  part  on  the  world's  stage,  though  often 
the  mark  of  public  scorn." 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the  history  of  this  family, 
than  their  adherence  and  unanimity.  It  is  said  of  Hono- 
rius,  who  died  in  1622,  that  he  was  the  "only  one  of  the 
family,  after  v/hose  death  an  inventory  was  found  :  a  proof 
of  the  praiseworthy  union,  which  cemented  their  domestic 
confidence." — Miraheau, 

Of  the  third  Flonorius,  a  person  of  extraordinary  charac- 
ter, v/ho,  upon  the  death  of  his  father,  in  1672,  became  the 
chief  of  the  house,  and  whose  economy  was  the  means  of 
saving  it  from  ruin,  "  was  called,  for  his  wisdom,  the  Sol- 
omon of  the  country."  He  was  also  a  soldier,  and  a  man 
of  vast  personal  authority.  He  intended  to  have  written  a 
history  of  his  domestic  troubles  at  Marseilles.  "  A  history 
of  this  description,  written  by  the  wisest  man  of  his  time, 
(for  such  was  his  reputation,)  a  man  whose  only  books,  after 
those  of  Holy  Writ,*  were  Thucydides,  Tacitus,  Machiavel, 
and  some  other  historians — a  man  also  of  weight  and  au- 
thority, entirely  broken  into  public  business,  would  no 
doubt  have  been  extremely  valuable,  notwithstanding  the 
apparently  small  importance  of  the  subject,  when  compared 
with  that  of  other  histories." — Ibid. 

Of  the  spirit  of  some  of  the  women  of  these  times,  some 
estimate  may  be  formed,  by  the  following  anecdote  of  Anne 
of  Ponteves  de  Bous,  the  wife  of  a  Riquetti.  Being  one 
day  outrageously  insulted  by  the  Chevalier  de  Griasque,  a 
well-known  bully,   "  Scoundrel  !"    she  exclaimed,   placing 

*  The  Bible  -was  a  Catholic,  as  well  as  Protestant  book,  in  those 
days ! 


MIR  ABE  ATI.  331 

the  muzzle  of  a  pistol  to  his  head,  "  I  would  blow  your 
brains  out,  but  that  I  have  children  who  will  avenge  me  in 
a  more  honorable  manner."  Accordingly,  her  son  Francis, 
then  not  seventeen  years  of  age,  hastened  home  from  Maltaj 
and  instantly  challenged  and  killed  the  bully. 

Bruno  de  Riquetti,  another  son  of  this  spirited  house,  was 
the  companion  of  Louis  XIV.,  in  his  youth.  He  would 
never  flatter  the  young  king,  by  being  intentionally  inferior 
to  him  in  athletic  sports.  His  temper,  like  that  of  the  rest 
of  this  family,  was  that  of  a  madman ;  nor  did  his  property 
restrain  it.  A  great  number  of  anecdotes  show  him  to 
have  been  a  man  of  the  most  brilliant  character. 

But  it  is  chiefly  on  the  character  of  his  grandfather, 
John  Antony*  Riquetti,  that  Mirabeau  takes  a  pleasure  in 
dwelling.  "  His  reputation,  (as  a  soldier,  he  had  not  his 
equal  in  the  grand  army  of  Louis  XIV.,  if  not  for  the  wis- 
dom, yet  for  the  more  brilliant  qualities  of  a  commander,)  his 
services,  his  commanding  figure,  his  rapid  eloquence,  his 
haughty  demeanor,  his  virtues,  and  even  his  defects,  in- 
spired all  around  him  with  a  certain  awe.  In  spite  of  the 
urbanity  of  his  manner,  his  quick  and  touchy  temper  made 
him  feared.  It  was  impossible  to  become  familiar  with 
him.  Even4iis  children  dared  not,  in  his  presence,  yield 
to  the  impulse  of  filial  affection." — Mirabeau.  ' 

The  memoirs  of  this  truly  heroical,  if  not  truly  great 
character,  forms  one  of  the  completest  military  portraits  in 
existence. 

Through  a  lack  of  those  qualities  which  are  necessary 
to  favor  at  court,  this  formidable  soldier  and  complete  gen- 
tleman never  rose  above  the  rank  of  colonel  in  the  French 
army,  though  his  services  placed  him  on  an  equal  footing 
with  the  best  commanders  of  his  time.  He  possessed  every 
quality  that  insures  respect,  united  with  a  desperate  valor, 
and  a  great  love  of  authority.  No  man  was  better  known, 
or  had  more  personal  regard  in  his  time.  It  was  impossible 
for  his  inferiors  in  age  or  position,  not  to  obey  him. 

The  sons  of  John  Antony  inherited  his  intelligence  and 


332  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

urbanity,  together  with  his  temper  and  imaginative  quali- 
ties. The  first  was  the  chevalier,  afterwards  Bailli  of  Mi- 
rabeau,  (born  1717,)  a  very  witty  and  sensible  man,  well- 
informed,  virtuous,  kind,  and  feeling ;  but  austere,  pro- 
foundly religious,  proud,  and  of  an  inflexible  firmness.  The 
Marchioness  of  Pompadour,  having  remarked  to  him,  in  a 
conversation  of  the  most  courtly  and  elegant  kind,  which  he 
knew  well  how  to  support,  that  it  was  a  pity  the  Mirabeaus 
were  all  such  hot-brained  men ;  the  chevalier,  who  was 
at  that  time  a  naval  officer  of  great  distinction,  immediately 
I'esumed  all  the  roughness  of  the  sailor,  and  retorted,  says 
Mirabeau,  in  these  remarkable  words  : — "  It  is  true,  madam, 
that  such  is  the  title  of  legitimacy  in  our  house  ;  but  wise 
and  cool  brains  have  been  guilty  of  so  many  follies,  and 
have  ruined  so  many  kingdoms,  that  it  would  not  be,  per- 
haps, very  imprudent  to  make  trial  of  hot  brains.  At  all 
events,  they  certainly  could  not  do  worse." 

The  life  of  a  courtier  inspired  him  with  an  aversion 
half  feudal,  half  republican,  which  amounted  almost  to  a 
mania  ;  and  after  rendering  important  services  in  the  navy, 
and  in  those  distant  employments  to  which  the  able  tactics 
of  men  in  power  wished  to  confine  him,  and  which,  fa- 
tiguing and  unproductive  as  they  were,  (he  was  at  one  time 
governor  of  Guadaloupe,)  ruined  his  health  without  increas- 
ing his  fortune  ;  he  retired  from  public  service,  and  soon 
after  became  bailli,  or  chief-judge  of  Mirabeau.  In  his  re- 
tirement he  devoted  himself  to  letters,  and  had  a  library  of 
six  thousand  volumes.  His  life  was  passed  in  acts  of  pri- 
vate beneficence  and  public  benefit.  Being  a  knight  of 
Malta,  it  was  proposed  at  one  time  to  raise  him  to  the  pres- 
idency, or  grand-mastership,  but  he  declined  the  honor. 

Victor,  the  eldest  of  the  three  sons  of  John  Antony,  and 
who  inherited  the  title  of  marquis,  was  born  at  Perthuis  in 
Provence,  on  the  15th  of  October,  1715.  He  became  a 
knight  of  Malta,  like  many  of  his  ancestors,  at  an  early 
age.  At  the  age  of  fourteen  ho  entered  the  army  as  en- 
sign— soon  after  became  captain  of  grenadiers,  in  the  regi- 


M  I  11  A  B  E  A  U .  333 

ment  of  Duras.  He  distinguished  himself  in  several  sieges 
— made  the  campaign  of  Bavaria  in  1742,  and  received  the 
cross  of  St.  Louis  in  1743. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  became  the  head  of  the 
family ;  and  having  no  taste  for  a  military  life,  retired 
upon  his  estates,  where  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of 
political  economy,  and  to  general  literature.  Soon  after, 
wishing  to  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  new  sect  of  politi- 
cal economists,  he  removed  to  Paris  with  his  family.  He 
had,  in  1743,  married  Mary  Genevieve  of  Vassau,  a  lady 
more  recommendable  by  advantages  of  birth  and  fortune, 
than  by  beauty  of  person.  This  was  the  mother  of  the  fa- 
mous Mirabeau.  The  literary  and  didactic  inclinations  of 
Victor,  made  their  appearance  in  great  strength,  at  a  very 
early  age.  Before  two  and  twenty  he  had  written  volumes  on 
political  economy,  and  even  traced  out  for  his  children,  that 
were  to  be,  "  plans,  injunctions,  and  instructions,"  as  curious 
for  the  same  dogmatical  spirit,  which  he  displayed  all  his  life 
after,  as  for  the  bombast  and  singularity  of  the  style  in  which 
they  were  enunciated.  His  familiar  letters,  on  the  contrary, 
were  remarkable  for  copiousness  and  ease  of  expression. 

He  had  also  a  passion  for  bad  bargains  in  estates,  by 
which  he  greatly  impaired  his  fortune. 

For  fifteen  years  he  lived  peaceably  with  his  wife,  who 
brought  him  eleven  children.  In  1760  the  growth  of  a  new 
affection  for  another  woman,  who  came  to  reside  at  Bignon, 
where  he  had  lived  since  his  marriage,  put  an  end  to  the 
fair  hopes  of  his  family.  The  despotic  character  of  Victor 
appeared  in  all  the  relations  of  life.  He  seems  to  have 
both  imitated  and  inherited  from  his  father,  a  vehement 
haughtiness  and  obstinacy  ;  which,  assisted  by  a  wrong-head- 
edness  peculiarly  his  own,  and  an  imagination  inflated  by 
political  and  metaphysical  speculations,  placed  him  com- 
pletely beyond  reach  of  advice  or  melioration.  In  his  fam- 
ily he  became  an  odious  despot — in  his  relation  to  the  world, 
a  pompous  dogmatist,  and  a  very  ambitious  fanatic.  His 
love  of  power  seems  to  have  been  intense,  and  his  abuse  of 


S34  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

it  a  matter  of  certainty  ;  not  from  any  principle  of  dishon- 
esty, for  from  that  his  great  pride  prevented  him,  but  from 
a  secret  delight  in  the  pre-eminence  of  his  own  conceptions. 

His  influence  as  a  political  writer  was  considerable,  and 
for  one  treatise,  his  Theorie  de  I'Impot,  the  government 
saw  fit  to  consider  him  dangerous,  and  even  worthy  of  a 
few  days'  imprisonment.  In  the  number  of  his  adherents 
were  many  illustrious  persons, — the  Margrave  of  Baden ; 
Leopold  of  Tuscany  ;  the  King  of  Poland ;  Gustavus  III., 
King  of  Sweden,  and  others,  of  the  higher  ranks.  It  was 
even  said  that  the  Dauphin,  son  of  Louis  XV.,  out  of  af- 
fection for  a  work  of  his,  called  the  "  Friend  of  Man," 
termed  it  "  the  breviary  of  honest  men." 

His  literary  habits  were  singularly  exact.  "  I  have  al- 
ways kept  a  memorandum  of  everything,"  he  writes  to  his 
brother  the  bailli,  between  whom  and  himself  there  passed 
a  correspondence  of  several  thousand  letters,  "  and  given 
an  account  of  everything.  At  twenty  I  spoke  and  wrote 
already  to  those  who  will  succeed  me."  He  left  at  his 
death,  exclusive  of  completed  works,  more  than  four  hun- 
dred folio  volumes  of  copied  correspondence,  memoranda,  &c. 

He  embraced  the  theories  of  Dr.  Quesnay,  who  was  his 
contemporary.  This  economist  founded  the  physiocratic 
school,  which  taught  that  the  agricultural  is  the  only  produ- 
cing class,  and  that  all  others  are  unproductive ;  thaW 
trade  should  be  free,  and  all  power  founded  in  landed  pos- 
session ;  a  principle  essentially  feudal  and  aristocratic,  and 
therefore  agreeable  to  a  Mirabeau.  The  marquis  even  be- 
came the  successor  of  Quesnay,  and  led  the  sect.  "  My 
principles,"  he  wrote,  in  answer  to  a  proposition  from  the 
Dauphin,  to  make  him  under-tutor  to  liis  sons,  "  are,  that 
in  public  affains,  determination  is  necessary.  Aut  Cccsar, 
aut  nihil" — an  answer  which  agrees  perfectly  with  every 
action  of  his  life.     In  all  things  he  showed  the  despot. 

"  The  Marquis  of  Mirabeau,"  says  his  biographer,  "  ac- 
customed himself  early  to  place  upon  those  under  his  con- 
trol, the  heavy  yoke  of  marital  and  paternal  despotism ; — 


MIR  A  B  E  AU.  335 

the  yoke  of  the  husband,  as  he  had  seen  it  borne  by  his 
mother,  whom  he  idolized  ;*  the  paternal  yoke,  for  never 
was  son  more  submissive  ;  and  even  at  the  age  of  fifty-four, 
did  this  haughty  man  kneel  every  evening,  and  bow  his 
head,  to  receive  his  mother's  blessing.  As  a  nobleman,  af- 
fable ;  as  a  husband,  imperious ;  popular  and  obliging 
among  his  tenantry  ;  formal  and  haughty  with  his  family ; 
naturally  gay,  and  yet  almost  always  in  his  family  circle 
wearing  a  covering  of  stern  and  gloomy  moroseness ;  pos- 
sessing sensibility,  and  yet  striving  at  all  times  to  disguise 
the  feelings  of  his  heart ;  sincerely  religious,  but  without 
humility,  without  indulgence,  and  never  forgiving ;  dis- 
daining persuasion,  and  irritated  by  resistance  ;  sincerely  a 
philanthropist  in  speculative  theory,  but  hard-hearted  and 
inflexible  in  the  practice  of  domestic  discipline  ;  an  ardent 
apostle  of  legality,  yet  governing  his  family  by  imprisoning 
his  refractory  children  :"  an  unfaithful  husband,  a  jealous 
and  terrible  parent,  "  economical,  and  even  penurious,  in 
regard  to  himself  and  others ;  and  adopting  all  possible 
order  in  dissipating  his  fortune  in  adventurous  undertak- 
ings; wise,  yet  committing  errors  without  number,  through 
excessive  confidence  in  theory  ; — he  suffered  much,  and 
made  others  suffer  with  him ;  he  had  little  of  serenity,  less 
of  joy ;  and  he  precipitated  his  nearest  of  kin  into  count- 
less misfortunes,  and  what  is  worse,  into  faults  which  have 
been  represented  as  crimes."  Such  was  the  father  of  Mi- 
rabeau  :  and  a  knowledsre  of  the  character  of  the  father  is 
absolutely  necessary  to  an  understanding  of  that  of  the  son. 
He  is  reported  to  have  hated  his  son  for  the  apparent 
freedom  of  character  which  he  saw  in  him.  Accustomed, 
himself,  to  submit  to  the  paternal  will,  he  required,  but 
could  not  exact  the  same,  in  his  own  children  : — with  great 
pride,  he  had  not  a  strong  will  ;  and  sought  to  govern 
by  terror,  •rather  than  justice.  "All  my  misfortunes," 
says  Mirabeau,  "  derive  their  origin  from  having  offended 

*  One  of  the  most  admirable  "women  of  her  time,  for  qualities 
proper  to  her  sex,  and  the  reverse  of  those  of  her  husband  and  son. 


336  B  I  O  G  R  A  IMl  I  C  A  L      ADDENDA. 

my  father,  to  whom,  ten  years  smce,  with  the  ingenuousness 
and  imprudence  of  youth,  I  uttered  those  touching,  and  too 
keenly-felt  words,  which,  to  my  misfortune,  he  will  never 
forget :  Alas  !  sir,  if  you  had  only  self-love,  would  not  my 
success  belong  to  you  ?"*     "  Yet,"  says  the  partial  biog- 
rapher, "the  marquis  felt  neither  hatred  nor  jealousy  for  his 
son,  though  he  persecuted  him  from  childhood  to  manhood, 
with  the  (apparent !)  rancor  of  a  mortal  enemy. "f     Yet  Mi- 
rabeau  himself  says  of  him,  "  My  father  is  as  much  my  supe- 
rior in  genius  as  he  is  in  age,  and  by  being  my  parent." 
The  marquis  seems  to  have  striven  all  his  life  to  attain  the 
pitch  of  authority  which  he  felt  in  his  father,  John  Antony, 
whose  superior  nature   and  military  education  gave  him  a 
great  advantage  ; — but  for  severity  and  justice,  he  would 
find  nothing  in  his  own  nature  but  tyranny  and  self-opinion- 
ated pride.     The  slightest  hesitation,  the  least  doubt  of  him- 
self,  could   never   reach    his  mind ;    his   impressions,    his 
opinions,  his  convictions,  his  duties,  such  as  he  conceived 
them — his   conscience,  "  which    he   exaggerated    and   dis- 
placed," had,  in  his  eyes,  an  authority  to  which  everything 
must  yield.     He  showed  himself  a  blind  fanatic — a  slave, 
who  would  be  a  Brutus. 

His  quarrel  with  his  wife,  who  seems  to  have  wanted 
art,  and  to  have  been  of  a  temper  not  less  unforgiving  and 
passionate  than  her  husband,  threw  the  greater  number  of 
their  children  into  a  career  of  life  attended  with  unlimited 
danger,  disorder,  wanderings,  and  misfortunes.  Acts  of 
odious  despotism  on  his  part,  under  the  influence  of  another 
woman,  whose  youth  and  beauty  gave  her  a  superior  in- 
fluence, were  all  the  answers  to  the  vehement,  but  just  com- 
plaints of  his  wife.  "  Her  rage  knew  no  bounds ;  a  furious 
enmity,  and  a  scandalous  lawsuit  were  the  consequences, 
during  fifteen  years  afterwards ;  which  poisoned  the  re- 
mainder of  their  lives,  broke  up  a  highly  respectable  family, 
and  rendered  their  children  in  a  manner  orphans.  "  Ga- 
briel Honore,  since  so  celebrated,  under  the  name  of  the 

*  Memoirs  of  Mirabeau,  Vol.  I.  p.  235.  t  Ibid. 


M  T  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  337 

Count  of  Mirabeau,  was  the  fifth  child  of  the  marquis,  and 
was  born  on  the  9th  of  March,-  1749,  at  Bignon.  The 
period  of  gestation  was  alarming,  and  during  delivery,  the 
size  of  the  child's  head  placed  the  mother  in  extreme  dan- 
ger.  Destined  to  be  the  most  turbulent  and  active  of 
youths,  as  well  as  the  most  eloquent  of  men,  Gabriel  was 
born  with  one  foot  twisted,  and  his  tongue  tied  ;  in  addition 
to  which  his  strength  and  size  were  extraordinary,  and 
already  were  two  teeth  formed  in  his  jaw." 

"  His  father  had  observed  certain  Shandean  precautions, 
recommended  by  his  friend,  the  Duke  of  Nivernois,  to 
whose  advice  he  attributed  more  than  v/as  due."* 

The  aristocratic  importance  of  the  marquis  on  his  estate, 
is  apparent  from  the  following  extract  from  a  letter,  to  the 
above-named  nobleman,  on  this  event.  "  You  know  now 
that  I  have  a  son  who  owes  his  existence  to  you," — in  a 
Shandean  sense,  of  course.  "  This  has  given  me  an  oppor- 
tunity of  knowing,  that  to  do  good,  or  at  least  to  seem  to  do 
so,  attracts  a  kindly  regard.  I  am  pretty  charitable  in 
word  and  deed,  and  1  employ  all  the  poor  who  offer  them- 
selves. My  wife  is  so,  likewise  ;  she  dresses,  with  constitu- 
tional heroism,  the  most  hideous  ulcers,  has  various  recipes, 
and  civcs  five  sous  to  each  of  those  whose  sores  she  has 
dressed.  These  trifles  succeed  :  And  being  stopped  by  a 
sort  of  superstition,  as  there  was  a  village  festival  on  the 
birth  of  my  first  child,  1  intended  to  have  forbidden  all 
village  rejoicings.  But  the  country  people  from  the 
neighboring  parishes  were  assembled,  and  testified  a  joy 
which  I  did  not  expect  fron^  them ;  saying,  that  if  he 
resembled  his  father,  they  should  not,  for  a  long  time  to 
come,  eat  acorns,  as  their  neighbors  of  Egreville  had  done" 
— (through  bad  management  of  the  estate  ?) — "  the  year  be- 
fore." Again,  from  a  letter  dated  in  1763  :  "  I  have  nothing 
to  say  about  my  enormous  son,  only  that  he  beats  his  nurse, 
who  does  not  fail  to  return  it,  and  they  try  which  shall 
strike  hardest."     Again :  "  The  hale  and  robust  farrier's 

*  Memoirs  of  Mirabeau,  p.  240. 
29 


338  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

wife,  of  whom  you  speak,  is  the  same  that  nursed  my  son. 
She  is  a  mistress  woman,  who  has  well  brought  up  two 
coveys  of  children.  She  kept  a  forge,  though  a  widow  ; 
for  having  had  two  husbands,  and  finding  that  they  did  not 
last,  she  refused  to  take  a  third.  She  has  paid  her  husband's 
debts,  and  brought  up  her  sons,  who  have  married  in  obedi- 
ence to  her  wishes.  She  has  reared  flocks  of  geese  that 
would  do  the  Prussian  exercise,  and  turkeys  capable  of 
passing  a  decree  on  inoculation, — all  the  while  striking 
upon  the  anvil,  as  a  pastime,  under  the  impression,  as  she 
says,  '  that  it  lengthens  the  arms.'  This  is  much  better 
than  winnowing  oats,  as  Dulcinea  did  at  the  audience  she 
gave  the  ambassador,  Sancho."* 

When  three  years  old,  Gabriel  had  the  confluent  small- 
pox. A  hasty  application  upon  the  tumefied  face  of  some 
injudicious  prescription,  caused  the  boy's  countenance  to  be 
deeply  furrowed  and  scarred.  The  marquis  wrote  some  time 
after  to  the  Bailli : — "  Your  nephew  is  as  ugly  as  the  nephew 
of  Satan."  As  all  the  other  children  were  gifted  with  re- 
markable beauty,  this  accident  may  have  been  the  cause  of 
a  secret  aversion  in  the  parent ;  it  certainly  had  a  great  effect 
on  others.    ^ 

His  private  tutor,  Poisson,  an  intelligent  and  meritorious 
person,  took  every  pains  to  develop  his  mind,  which  showed 
early  the  signs  of  great  power.  From  his  fourth  year,  Ga- 
briel was  curious,  inquisitive,  and  fond  of  reading.  He 
possessed  himself  of  all  papers  that  came  in  his  way. 

His  uncle,  then  the  Chevalier  Mirabeau,  and  Governor  of 
Gaudaloupe,  discovered  froni  the  first  great  interest  in  him ; 
inquires  about  him,  in  his  constant  correspondence  with  the 
marquis,  and  afterwards  used  a  great  influence  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  young  man's  character.  He  seems  to  have 
regarded  him  as  the  true  representative  of  the  family.  In 
Paris,  (1754,)  the  father  writes  to  the  uncle :  "  Your 
nephew  is  fat  and  strong.  He  is  not  forgotten,  and  his 
education  is  excellent ;   for  that  is  the  only  thing  to  prevent . 

*  Memoirs  of  Mirabeau,  p.  241. 


i 


MIRABEAU.  339 

the  smoke  of  the  heart  from  drifting  in  a  wrong  direction. 
All  Paris  talks  of  his  precocity ;  nevertheless,  as  he  is  your 
child,  as  well  as  mine,  I  must  tell  you  that  his  acquire- 
ments are  not  very  extensive  at  present.  He  has  little 
vices,  except  mechanical  inequality,  if  it  were  permitted  to 
break  forth.  He  has  not  much  sensitiveness,  and  is  as 
porous*  as  a  bed  of  sand  ;  but  he  is  only  five  years  old." 
And  again :  "  May  he  (Poisson)  make  him  an  honest  man, 
and  a  courageous  citizen.  This  is  all  that  is  necessary. 
With  these  qualities  he  will  make  that  race  of  pigmies 
tremble  before  him,  who  play  the  great  men  at  court.  I 
repeat,  with  sincerity,  the  prayer  which  Joad  made  on  be- 
half of  Eliakim.     May  God  hear  ray  prayer  !" 

At  the  age  of  seven  he  was  confirmed  by  the  cardinal. 
"  It  was  at  the  grand  supper  which  succeeded  this  ceremony, 
that  he  made  the  singular  distinction  related  by  himself. 
'  They  explained  to  me  that  God  could  not  make  contra- 
dictions :  for  instance,  a  stick  that  had  but  one  end.  I  in- 
quired whether  a  miracle  was  not  a  stick  which  had  but 
one  end.     My  grandmother  never  forgave  me.'  " 

The  boy  became  in  after  time  almost  ungovernable,  and 
was  subjected  to  perpetual  chastisement.  His  precocity  of 
mind,  and  even  of  body,  was  a  cause  of  perpetual  anxiety 
and  trouble.  His  father,  who  really  doated  on  him  at  this 
age,  describes  him  humorously  thus  :  "  This  child,  though 
turbulent,  is  mild  and  easily  controlled,  but  of  a  temper 
tending  to  indolence.  As  he  does  not  ill-resemble  Punch, 
being  all  belly  and  posterior,  he  appears  to  me  very  well 
qualified  for  the  manceuvres  of  the  tortoise  :  he  presents  his 
shell,  and  allows  you  to  strike." 

In  reply  to  his  mother,  who  reproached  him  with  talking 
too  much,  he  answered,  "  Mamma,  I  think  the  mind  is  like 
the  hand  ;  be  it  handsome  or  ugly,  it  is  made  for  use,  and 
not  for  show."  But  this,  and  other  anecdotes,  show  only 
the  apt  disposition  of  his  mind,  which  easily  took  impressions 

*  I.  e.  Great  memory. 


340  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

and  sentences  from  others ;  the  same  belongs  to  him  in  af- 
ter-life, for  he  was  a  notorious  plagiarist. 

Traits  of  generosity  and  honor  were  more  original  with 
him ;  though  for  these  a  great  deal  must  be  attributed  to 
instruction.  The  age  was  sentimental,  the  tradition  of  no- 
bleness was  in  his  family,  and  belonged  to  him  of  right. 

His  father's  aversion  for  him  began  to  appear  about  his 
twelfth  year,  and  strengthened  with  his  growth.  The  mar- 
quis  writes  thus :  "  He  has  an  elevated  mind,  under  the  frock 
of  a  babe.  This  shows  a  strange  instinct  of  pride.  Noble, 
nevertheless ;  it  is  an  embryo  of  a  bloated  bully,  who  will 
eat  every  man  alive  before  he  is  twelve  years  old." 

The  whole  of  the  extraordinary  anecdotes  related  of  this 
unpaternal  jealousy,  show  it  to  have  originated  in  a  fear  of 
the  parent,  lest  the  son  should  prove  too  powerful  a  nature 
for  himself  to  control ;  a  fear  sufficient,  and  more  than  suf- 
ficient, to  have  caused  the  long  animosity  and  separation 
which  ensued.  The  old  eagle  feared  the  young  one's  beak, 
and  would  fain  drive  it  from  the  nest.  Yet,  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  malice  nor  ferocity  in  the  boy,  only  a  natural 
disrespect  for  authority  ;  the  more  painful,  as  it  was  united 
with  a  mature  generosity  and  courage,  and  a  precocious  dis- 
position to  animal  vices. 

"  He  is  a  type,"  writes  the  father,  "  deeply  stamped  in 
meanness  and  absolute  baseness,  arid  of  that  rough  and 
dirty  character  of  the  caterpillar,  which  cannot  be  rubbed 
off."  Again  :  "  He  possesses  intelligence,  a  memory,  and  a 
capacity,  which  strikes,  amazes,  and  terrifies."  Again  : 
"  He  is  a  nothing  set  off  with  trifles,  which  will  excite  the 
admiration  of  silly  gossips,  but  will  never  be  but  the  fourth 
part  of  a  man,  if,  perchance,  he  becomes  anything."  Fur- 
ther, he  says,  writing  to  the  Bailli :  "  I  see  that  the  contin- 
uation of  your  kindness  towards  your  nephew,  has  reference 
to  the  talents  and  capacity  in  which  you  know  he  is  not  de- 
ficient ;  but  I  know,  from  the  physical  cut  of  such  charac- 
ters, that  you  must  give  it  up  whether  you  will  or  not. 
They  are  always  known  by  their  brutal  appetites,  which 


MIRABEAU.  341 

emanate  from  themselves.  Indulgence  in  such  appetites 
leads  to  excess,  which  is  gross  intemperance ;  and,  as  self- 
love,  which  abandons  no  one,  even  upon  the  wheel,  becomes 
cowardly  with  cowards,  vain  with  the  vain,  ferocious  with 
the  ferocious,  their  ambition  is  to  surpass  swine.  There  are 
dregs  in  every  race."* 

Finding  it  impossible  to  govern  his  son  at  home,  the  mar- 
quis sent  him  to  a  military  school  at  Paris,  where  he  was 
subjected  to  a  severe  discipline,  under  the  care  of  a  judi- 
cious master,  who  subdued  his  temper,  and  so  far  excited 
his  ambition,  that  he  began  soon  to  learn  with  great  rapid- 
ity ;  and  excelled  all  others  of  his  age.  His  memory,  al- 
ways powerful,  became  stored  with  a  prodigious  variety  of 
knowledge.  He  mastered  the  Greek  and  Latin  tongues, 
became  familar  with  English,  Italian,  German,  and  Span- 
ish, with  which  he  had  been  early  acquainted  in  some  de- 
gree ;  applied  passionately  to  mathematics,  music,  and 
drawing ;  with  all  of  which  he  became  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted. Manly  exercises  were  equally  to  his  taste  ;  and 
in  riding,  dancing,  fencing,  and  other  exercises,  he  distin- 
guished himself  above  his  equals  in  age. 

His  mother,  who  loved  him,  supplied  him  secretly  with 
money ;  a  measure,  whose  discovery  greatly  widened  the 
breach  between  herself  and  her  husband.  Gabriel  was 
consequently  cut  off  from  all  correspondence  with  his 
mother  ;  a  deprivation  by  no  means  favorable  to  the  soften- 
ing of  his  disposition. 

His  father,  meanwhile,  through  the  malevolent  sugges- 
tions  of  Madame  de  Pailly,  and  others,  became  a  prey  to 
gloomy  suspicions,  and  seemed  more  and  more  estranged 
from  his  son.  He  placed  him  in  the  army  to  get  him  as  far 
as  possible  out  of  sight.  His  feelings  were  certainly  mono- 
maniacal,  for  he  looked  upon  his  boy  as  the  curse  of  his 
life,  notwithstanding  his  great  promise.  In  1767,  Gabriel 
joined  the  army,  and  behaved  well  in  his  new  situation  ;  but 
did  not  fail  of  losing  some  money  at  play,  and  otherwise  ex- 

*  Memoirs  of  Mirabeau. — Vol.  I.  p.  256. 
w  29* 


342  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

citing  the  anger  of  his  father — who  now  conceived  a  new 
species  of  hatred  against  him,  as  promising  to  be  a  spend- 
thrift. He  threatens  him  with  imprisonment,  calls  him,  in 
a  letter  to  the  bailli,  a  "  scoundrel,"  and  intimates  that  he 
has  no  more  affection  for  him  left.  A  love  affair,  foolish 
enough,  but  not  without  danger,  caused  him  to  quit  his 
regiment,  and  go  to  Paris ;  for  which  his  father  had  him 
imprisoned  by  a  lettre  de  cachet  —  a  customary  remedy 
granted  by  the  king  to  noblemen,  for  the  government  of 
their  refractory  sons.  He  was  then  but  eighteen  years  of 
age,  full  of  honor,  of  courage,  of  sentiment,  and  even 
of  deference  for  the  father,  who  feared,  and  therefore,  hated 
him.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a  series,  of  which  our 
limits  forbid  the  detail,  of  groundless  persecutions,  charges, 
recriminations,  ending  in  the  final  extinction  of  all  affection 
between  the  child  and  parent.  Gabriel  was  repeatedly  im- 
prisoned, involved  in  law-suits,  reduced  to  beggary  ;  and 
finally,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  thrown  upon  the  world,  to  live 
by  literary  labor,  and  at  last,  to  become  the  leader  and  first 
spirit  of  the  Revolution.  His  quarrels  gave  him  the  art  of 
self  command,  his  recriminations  and  defences  made  him  an 
orator,  his  solitary  wretchedness  taught  him  to  sympathize 
with  human  misery,  his  compulsory  independence,  to  be 
fearless  of  all  obstacles  and  of  the  future. 

Nor  was  his  life  without  fault.  On  the  contrary,  with 
the  manly  virtues,  the  pride,  courage,  ^generosity,  and  am- 
bition of  his  family,  he  inherited,  and  did  not  fail  constantly 
to  discover,  their  habitual  neglect  of  social  morality,  and 
of  common  prudence.  His  habits,  excepting  in  the  article 
of  wine,  were  habitually  loose  and  intemperate.  He  was 
even  a  lover  of  obscenity,  and  delighted  in  the  description,  if 
not  in  the  practice,  of  the  basest  vices.  How  much  of  this 
is  to  be  attributed  to  education,  and  how  much  to  nature 
and  circumstances,  it  is  impossible  to  decide.  Enough, 
that  the  Revolution  found  him,  with  all  his  faults,  a  fit  head 
and  master. 

"  At  this  period,"  says  his  biographer,  "  Mirabeau's  frank- 


MIRABEAU.  343 

ness  and  generosity,  rather  than  any  superiority  of  mind, 
gave  him  an  influence  over  all  who  were  near  him  ;  and, 
perhaps,  no  man  carried  it  to  a  greater  extent.  The  most 
grievous  injustice,  which  youth  feels  so  strongly  and  re- 
pulses with  so  much  vigor,  did  not  spoil  his  excellent  tem- 
per :  he  was  easily  appeased — a  single  demonstration 
could  move,  a  word  affect  him." 

Being  with  the  army  at  Corsica,  he  wrote  an  account  of 
that  brave  people,  probably  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Spartans,  and  of  whom  a  Roman  general  said,  "  they  were 
incorrigible,  not  fit  even  to  bo  slaves."  The  Genoese  had 
overrun  their  island,  and  committed  great  havoc.  Mira- 
beau,  hating  all  injustice  and  despotic  violence,  wrote  his 
account  to  excite  the  sympathy  of  the  world.  It  was  a 
bold  and  spirited  work.  But  he  says  of  it  himself,  that  his 
father  would  never  allow  it  to  be  published,  "  notwithstand- 
ing the  wish  of  all  Corsica."  "  This  work  was,  no  doubt, 
very  incorrect,  but  full  of  fire  and  truth  ;  and  it  contained 
true  views  and  facts  relative  to  a  country  of  which  no  cor- 
rect account  had  ever  been  given,  because  mercenary 
writers,  (the  Germanes,)  or  fanatical  enthusiasts,  (the  Bos- 
wells.)  had  alone  undertaken  the  task."*  This  work  was 
written  during  a  military  campaign,  and  in  his  twentieth 
year — a  proof  of  great  energy.  About  this  time  his  uncle 
writes :  "  I  assure  you,  I  found  him  very  repentant  of  his 
past  misdeeds.  He  appears  to  me  to  have  a  feeling  heart ; 
as  for  wit,  I  have  already  mentioned  that :  he  would  cast 
the  very  devil  into  the  shade.  I  tell  you  once  more,  either, 
he  is  the  cleverest  and  ablest  banterer  in  the  universe,  or 
he  will  be  the  best  subject  in  Europe  to  become  either 
general,  admiral,  (fee.  For  my  own  part,  the  lad  cuts 
open  my  bosom,  &c."  Here  follows  the  true  secret,  in  a 
letter  of  his  father's.  "  In  St.  John's  name,  do  not  trust  to 
his  excuses,  or  he  will  mould  you  with  his  hand.  He 
knows  how  to  appear  as  tame  as  a  pet  canary  bird ;  his 
head  is  like  a  wind-mill,  and  a  fire-mill  at  the  same  time. 

*  Mirabeau's  account.    Memoks,  Vol.  I.  p.  313. 


344  *       BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

His  imperturbable  impudence  will  make  his  fortune,  when 
once  he  becomes  steady ;  but  I  had  rather  not  have  a  taste 
of  itj  and  you  will  not,  therefore,  take  it  amiss,  if  I  proceed 
more  cautiously.  I  can  never  approve  of  fathers  and  sons 
being  hail-fellow,  well  met."*  In  1780,  Mirabeau  writes 
to  -his  sister  :  "  What  I  am  more  especially  destined  to  by 
nature,  if  I  am  not  much  mistaken,  is  to  be  a  soldier ;  for 
it  is  in  battle  only  that  I  am  cool,  calm,  and  lively,  without 
impetuosity.  I  then  feel  that  I  become  taller."  He  was 
at  this  time  composing  a  treatise  on  war,  and  had  collected 
extracts  from  three  hundred  authors  on  that  subject,  which 
were  in  his  uncle's  library. 

In  his  father's  political-economical  theory  he  discovered 
no  faith  ;  which  the  more  widened  the  breach.  Living  now 
with  his  uncle,  he  showed  vast  literary  diligence.  The 
bailli  became  his  firm  friend  and  protector  for  many 
years.  He  says  of  him  :  "  This  head  of  his  is  a  mill  for 
reflections  and  ideas."  And  again  :  "  He  perfectly  under- 
stands reason  ;  he  listens  to  nothing  else." 

At  this  time  he  devoted  himself  to  an  examination  of  his 
uncle's  estate,  and  showed  the  greatest  sense  and  under- 
standing in  the  economy  of  agriculture  and  management. 
Yet,  even  in  his  notes  on  these  topics,  an  occasional  sally 
discovers  his  natural  hatred  of  arbitrary  power. f 

Very  early  he  aimed  at  eloquence.  ^  A  friend  took  him 
by  surprise  one  day  in  his  chamber,  while  he  was  declaim- 
ing with  great  heat  and  energy.  "  What !  are  you  playing 
the  Demosthenes'?" — "  And  why  not?"  replied  Mirabeau; 
"  perhaps  a  day  may  come,  when  the  States- General  will 
exist  in  France  !" 

0 

In  his  twenty-third  year,  while  at  Aix,"in  Provence,  Mi- 
rabeau became  acquainted  with  Mademoiselle  Emilie  de 
Marignane,  the  heiress  of  an  extremely  opulent  family,  and 
a  young  and  very  beautiful  woman.  The  obstacle  of  a 
rival,  who  had  the  good  will  of  her  parents,  prevented  the 

*  Mirabeau's  account.     Memoirs,  Vol.  I.  p.  319. 
t  See  Memoirs,  Vol.  I.  p.  330. 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U  .  345 

marriage.  To  force  them  to  a  conclusion  in  his  favor,  Mi- 
rabeau  ingratiated  himself  with  one  of  the  young  lady's 
women,  through  whom  he  gained  access  to  the  house,  and 
frequently  passed  the  night  there.  He  contrived  to  have  it 
rumored  about  that  the  honor  of  the  young  lady  herself 
was  perilled  by  these  visits ;  a  scandal  which  caused  a 
withdrawal  of  his  rival,  and  brought  the  parents  themselves 
rather  suddenly  to  terms.* 

This  union  failed  to  satisfy  him,  as  might  be  expected. 
The  young  lady's  income  did  not  meet  his  hopes,  being 
less  than  three  hundred  pounds  sterling  a  year ;  no  great 
matter  for  a  man  of  his  habits.  His  wife,  notwithstanding 
the  dishonorable  stratagem  of  her  husband  to  obtain  her 
hand,  seems  to  have  been,  in  some  measure,  attached  to 
him  ;  for  she  followed  him  into  his  retirement,  whither  he 
went  in  consequence  of  debts — his  father  refusing,  of  course, 
all  relief.  Here  he  found  reason  to  quarrel  with  his  wife, 
who  v/as  in  some  menner  unfaithful  to  him.  Soon  after, 
having  quitted  his  place  of  exile,  he  went  secretly  to  visit 
his  sister,  and  was  discovered  and  again  imprisoned  by  his 
father.  In  the  chateau  d'lf  he  employed  himself  in  reading 
Tacitus  and  Rousseau,  and  thereupon  wrote  his  Essai  sur  le 
Despotism,  while  smarting  under  his  father's  severity. 

In  1775,  he  was  transferred  to  the  fortress  of  Joux,  near 
Pontarlier.  He  had  been  there  only  a  short  time  when,  by 
his  agreeable  and  fascinating  manners,  he  obtained  the  gov- 
ernor's permission  to  reside  in  the  town.  Here  he  became 
acquainted  with  Sophie  de  Ruffey,  the  young  and  beautiful 
wife  of  the  Marquis  de  Monnier,  ex-president  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  at  Dole,  a  man  upwards  of  sixty  years  of 
age.  Mirabeau  instantly  became  enamored.  A  liason  en- 
sued, and  subsequently  a  law-suit  and  a  sea  of  troubles. 
He  gained  his  suit  by  a  burst  of  the  most  splendid  elo- 
quence, and  fled  from  his  father's  anger,  with  Sophie,  to 
Switzerland,  and  afterwards  to  Amsterdam,  where  he  lived 
concealed — earning  one  gold  louis  a  day  by  translating,  and 

♦  Mirabeau's  Letters,  Vol.  I.  p.  33. 


S46  BIOGRAPHICAL-   ADDENDA. 

Other  literary  labor.  In  Holland,  Mirabeau  wrote  certain 
memoirs  against  his  father,  in  a  spirit  of  revenge,  of  which 
it  is  certain  he  afterwards  repented.  About  this  time  he 
conceived  the  design  of  embarking  for  America,  but  failed 
of  accomplishing  it.  A  new  order  from  the  government,  ob- 
tained by  his  father,  placed  him,  after  eight  months'  ab- 
sence, in  the  castle  of  Vincennes,  where  he  nearly  died 
from  the  severity  of  his  imprisonment. 

In  this  imprisonment  he  wrote  various  licentious  books, 
translated  and  compiled  ; — ^Boccacio,  Johannes  Secundus, 
L'Erotica  Biblion,  a  collection  of  obscenities,  from  the 
Scripture  and  Calmet's  Commentaries,  and  various  ancient 
authors.  In  1784,  he  went  to  England,  being  now  released 
from  imprisonment,  carrying  with  him  a  new  mistress, 
Henrietta  Von  Haren,  with  whom  he  became  acquainted  in 
Holland.  This  was  a  love  attachment,  the  woman  herself 
being  an  amiable  person  of  the  most  winning  manners,  and 
of  a  respectable  family.  Upon  some  pretence,  he  sent  her 
over  to  Paris  ;  and  finally  deserted  her  for  a  Parisian  woman 
called  Le  Jay,  of  profligate  character,  but  who  knew  how  to 
manage  Mirabeau.  She  was  flattering,  artful,  and  voluptu- 
ous— qualities  very  sure  to  overcome  him. 

In  England  Mirabeau  matured  his  notions  of  liberty,  and 
studied  the  forms  of  a  limited  monarchy,  which  he  deemed 
most  favorable  to  its  preservation.  His  letters  show  a  pro- 
found admiration  for  the  English  character  and  govern- 
ment.* He  published  in  London,  various  political  works. 
His  first  was,  "  The  Cincinnati,"  an  account  of  a  projected 
society  in  the  United  States  of  America,  which,  however, 
had  been  written  by  him  at  Paris,  with  the  assiscance  of  Dr. 
Franklin  and  Champfort.  His  brain  teemed  with  literary 
projects.  His  pen  was  his  support.  As  an  orator  he  made 
Chatham  his  model,  and  became  acquainted  with  Wilkes, 
and  other  celebrated  persons  of  the  day.  No  man  liad 
greater  facility  in  making  and  keeping  friends.  He  had 
"  the  terrible  power  of  familiarity  ;"  and  was  as  easily  af- 
*  Mirabeau's  Letters,  2  vols.    London,  1832.— Trans. 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U .  347 

fected  by  the  passions  of  others  as  an  infant — but  was  never 
broken  or  overcome  by  any  degree  of  severity  or  arrogance. 
A  trial  of  his  own  servant,  Hardy,  for  robbing  him,  made 
him  acquainted  with  the  forms  of  the.  English  law,  and 
trial  by  jury.  He  proposed,  thereupon,  to  reform  the 
French  system  of  jurisprudence  upon  the  English  model. 

In  1786  he  appeared  at  Berlin,  as  has  been  supposed,  on 
a  secret  mission  from  his  government,  to  observe  the  Prus- 
sian court.  Here  he  was  admitted  to  an  interview  with 
Frederic  the  Great,  and  enjoyed  a  conversation  with  that 
monarch,  then  in  his  last  illness.  He  addressed  two  letters 
to  his  successor,  entitled,  "  Counsel  to  a  young  Prince,  who 
means  to  reform  his  own  Education."  They  are  distin- 
guished by  precision  of  style,  depth  of  thought,  and  dignity 
of  precept. 

While  in  Berlin,  he  joined  tHe  society  of  Illuminati,  and 
published  an  essay  on  that  institution,  professing  to  disclose 
its  secrets — but  so  singular  in  its  details,  it  is  by  some  sup- 
posed to  be  a  hoax.  .  He  also  ridiculed  Lavater,  and  the 
impostor  Cagliostro,  in  letters  publicly  addressed  to  them. 
At  Berlin  he  collected  materials  for  his  history  of  the  Prus- 
sian monarchy  ;  and  wrote  also  a  secret  history  and  anec- 
dotes of  that  court. 

During  Mirabeau's  visit  to  London,  says  Dumont,  in  his 
"  Recollections  of  Mirabeau,"  he  was  poor,  and  obliged  to 
live  by  his  writings.  This  was  in  1784,  when  his  reputa- 
tion was  at  the  lowest.  He  was  at  this  time  in  the  36th 
year  of  his  age.  He  was  then  poor,  and  obliged  to  live  by 
his  writings.  He  had  plans  and  sketches  of  various  works, 
upon  which  he  took  good  care  to  consult  every  person  ca- 
pable of  giving  him  information.  Having  become  acquainted 
with  a  geographer,  he  meditated  writing  a  universal  geog- 
raphy ;  and  had  any  one  offered  him  the  elements  of  Chi- 
nese grammar,  he  would  no  doubt  have  attempted  a  treatise 
on  the  Chinese  language.  Such  was  his  confidence  in  his 
own  capacity.  He  studied  a  subject  while  writing  it,  and 
wanted  only  an  assistant  to  furnish  the  matter.     He  could 


348  B  I  O  G  R  A  P  II  I  C  A  L      ADDENDA. 

contrive  to  get  notes  and  additions  from  twenty  different 
hands  ;  and  had  he  been  offered  a  good  price,  I  am  confi- 
dent, says  Dumont,  he  would  have  undertaken  to  write  an 
encyclopedia.     Such  was  his  enterprise. 

"  His  activity  was  prodigious.  If  he  worked  littl-e  himself, 
he  made  others  work  very  hard.  He  had  the  art  of  finding 
out  men  of  talent,  and  of  successfully  flattering  those  who 
could  be  of  use  to  him.  He  worked  upon  them  with  in- 
sinuations of  friendship,  and  ideas  of  public  benefit.  His 
interestino;  and  animated  conversation  was  like  a  hone, 
which  he  used  to  sharpen  his  tools.  Nothing  was  lost  to 
him.  He  collected  with  care,  anecdotes,  conversations,  and 
thoughts;  appropriated  to  his  own  benefit  the  reading  and 
industry  of  his  friends — knew  how  to  use  the  information 
thus  acquired,  so  as  to  appear  always  to  have  possessed  it — 
and  when  he  had  begun  a  work  in  earnest,  it  was  seen  to 
make  a  rapid  and  daily  progress." 

He  was  no  man  of  etiquette,  and  to  carry  his  point,  would 
goto  those  who,  through  shame  or  contempt,  would  not  come 
to  him. 

"  He  was  a  delightful  companion,  in  every  sense  of  the 
word,  and  could  overcome  the  strongest  personal  prejudices, 
by  the  generous  and  animated  manner  of  his  intercourse. 
He  rejectcjd  the  forms  of  good-breeding ;  called  people  by 
their  names,  without  the  ceremonial  addition  ;  and  made 
it  his  first  care  to  remove  all  obstacles  to  a  familiar  in- 
tercourse:— using  an  agreeable  asperity,  and  a  pleasant 
crudity  of  expression,  more  apparent  than  real ;  for  under 
the  discruise  of  roughness,  sometimes  even  of  rudeness,  was 
to  be  found  all  the  reality  of  politeness  and  flattery.  After 
the  stiff  and  ceremonious  conversations  of  formal  good- 
breeding,  there  was  a  fascinating  novelty  in  his,  never 
rendered  insipid  by  forms  in  common  use.  His  residence  in 
Berlin  had  supplied  him  with  a  stock  of  curious  anecdotes : 
he  was  at  this  period"  (1788,  when  Dumont  first  knew  him, 
at  Paris,)  "  publishing  his  book  on  the  Prussian  monarchy. 
This  production  consisted  of  a  work  by  Major  Mauvillon, 


M  I  R  A  B  E  A  U .  349 

and  extracts  from  four  different  memoirs,  procured  at  great 
expense.  No  one  could,  for  a  moment,  suppose  that,  during 
a  residence  of  only  eight  months  at  Berlin,  Mirabeau  could 
himself  have  written  eight  volumes,  in  which  he  had  in- 
troduced every  possible  information  relative  to  the  govern- 
ment of  Prussia.  He,  as  usual,  employed  the  talents  of 
others  to  serve  his  own  designs." 

"  Mirabeau  enjoyed  a  high  reputation  as  a  writer.  His 
work  on  the  Bank  of  St.  Charles,  his  "  Denunciation  of 
Stock-jobbing,"  his  "Considerations  on  the  order  of  Cincin- 
natus,"  and  his  "  Lettres  de  Cachet,"  were  his  titles  to 
fame.  But  if  all  who  had  contributed  to  these  works,  had 
each  claimed  his  share,  nothins;  would  have  remained  as 
Mirabeau's  own,  but  a  certain  art  of  arrangement,  some 
bold  expressions,  biting  epigrams,  and  numerous  bursts  of 
manly  eloquence,  certainly  not  the  growth  of  the  French 
academy." 

He  obtained  from  Claviere  and  Panchaud  the  materials 
for  his  writings  on  finance.  Claviere  supplied  him  with 
the  subject  matter  of  his  letter  to  the  King  of  Prussia. 
De  Bourges  was  the  author  of  his  Address  to  the  Batavians  ; 
and  I  (says  Dumont,  from  whom  the  above  is  a  literal 
transcription,)  have  often  been  present  at  the  disputes  be- 
tween them,  to  which  this  circumstance  gave  rise.  Though 
the  authors  he  employed  were  enraged  with  his  success  at 
their  expense,  they  could  not  afterwards  destroy  the  reputa- 
tion they  had  aided  in  creating.  Mirabeau  (says  Dumont) 
had  a  right  to  consider  himself  the  parent  of  all  these  pro- 
ductions, because  he  presided  at  their  birth,  and  without  his 
indefatigable  activity  they  would  never  have  seen  the  light. 

"Claviere  called  Mirabeau  a  jackdaw,  that  ought  to  be 
stripped  of  his  borrowed  plumes ;  but  this  jackdaw,  even 
when  so  stripped,  was  still  armed  with  a  powerful  spur ; 
and  of  his  own  strength  could  soar  above  all  the  literary 
tribe. 

"  I  will  give  an  instance  of  his  activity — of  his  avarice,  I 
may  say,  in  collecting  the  smallest  literary  materials.     He 

30 


350  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

gave  me  a  methodical  list  of  the  subjects  we  had  discussed 
together  in  conversation,  and  upon  which  we  had  differed. 
It  was  headed  thus  :  "  List  of  Subjects  which  Dumont  en- 
gages, upon  the  faith  of  friendship,  to  treat  conscienciously, 
and  send  to  Mirabeau,  very  shortly  after  his  (Dumont's) 
return  to  London.  Diverse  anecdotes  on  his  residence 
in  Russia ;  biographical  sketches  of  several  celebrated 
Genevese  ;  opinions  on  national  education  ;"  eighteen  items 
in  all.     A  proof  of  his  attention  and  memory. 

"  Mirabeau  could  adopt  every  style  of  conduct  and  con- 
versation, and  though  not  himself  a  moral  man,  he  had  a 
very  decided  taste  for  the  society  of  those  whose  rigidity  of 
principle,  and  severity  of  morals,  contrasted  with  the  laxity 
of  his  own."  "  His  mode  of  inspiring  confidence  was  to  con- 
fess candidly,  the  faults  and  follies  of  his  youth,  express 
regret  at  his  former  errors,  and  declare  that  he  would  en- 
deavor to  expiate  them  by  a  sedulous  and  useful  application 
of  his  talents  in  future,  to  the  cause  of  humanity  and  lib- 
erty ;  without  allowing  any  personal  advantage  to  turn  him 
from  his  purpose.  He  had  preserved,  even  in  the  midst  of 
his  excesses,  a  certain  dignity  and  elevation  of  mind,  com- 
bined with  energy  of  character,  which  distinguished  him 
from  those  effeminate  and  worn-out  rakes,  those  walking 
shadows,  with  which  Paris  swarmed ;  and  one  was  tempted 
to  admit  as  an  excuse  for  his  faults,  the  particular  circum- 
stances of  his  education,  and  to  think  that  his  virtues  be- 
longed to  himself,  and  that  his  vices  were  forced  upon  him. 
I  never  knew  a  man  more  jealous  of  the  esteem  of  those 
whom  he  himself  esteemed,  or  one  who  could  be  acted  upon 
more  easily,  if  excited  by  a  sentiment  of  high  honor  ;  but 
there  was  nothing  uniform  or  permanent  in  his  character. 
His  mind  proceeded  by  leaps  and  starts,  and  obeyed  too 
many  impetuous  masters.  When  burning  with  pride  or 
jealousy  his  passions  were  terrible  ;  he  was  no  longer  mas- 
ter of  himself,  and  committed  the  most  dangerous  impruden- 
cies." — Dumont's  Recollec,  pp.  1-70. 

The  assembling  of  the  States-General  excited  in  him  the 


MIRABEAU.  351 

I 

highest,  the  most  extravagant  expectations.  He  foresaw 
tlie  approach  of  calamity  ;  he  determined — and  with  him 
to  determiiie  and  to  execute  were  the  same  thine: — to  be- 
come  himself  its  leader. 

AK4he  time  of  the  first  popular  elections  of  the  States- 
General,  he  went  to  Provence,  the  country  of  his  ancestors, 
in  hope  of  being  chosen  one  of  the  deputies  of  the  noblesse 
f'bl.that  province  ;  but,  rejected  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
no  possession  there,  he  took  a  shop,  or  warehouse,  and  in 
large  letters  placed  over  the  door  these  words  : — 

"  MiRABEAU,  MarCHAND  DB  DrAP." 

He  put  on  his  apron,  sold  his  wares,  and  thus  ridiculed 
as  the  "  Plebeian  Count,"  he  rendered  himself  so  popular, 
that  he  was  elected  a  deputy  by  acclamation,  for  that  district. 

On  his  arrival  at  the  latter  city,  previously  to  his  elec- 
tion, bread  happened  to  be  exceedingly  dear  ;  and  the  peo- 
ple had,  in  consequence,  risen.  Mirabeau,  whose  command 
over  the  passions  of  the  populace  was  at  all  times  absolute, 
rushed  to  the  balcony  of  his  apartment,  and  harangued  the 
mob  then  assembled  beneath  his  window.  His  appeal  thus 
concluded  : — "  Bread  would  not  be  dear  enou2:h  were  it  at 
the  price  you  wish  ;  and  it  would  be  too  dear,  were  it  to 
remain  at  the  present  price.  I  will  see  to  it.  Depart,  and 
depart  in  peace."  The  clamor  instantly  ceased,  and  the 
people  returned  to  their  homes. 

Of  this  plebeian  aristocrat — a  designation  of  which  Mira- 
beau seems  to  have  been  vain — La  Harpe  was  accustomed 
to  say,  that  he  was  naturally  and  essentially  a  despot ; 
and  that  had  he  enjoyed  the  government  of  an  empire,  he 
would  have  surpassed  Richelieu  in  pride,  and  Mazarin  in 
policy.* 

"  When  the  list  of  deputies  was  read  at  the  opening 
of  the  States-General,  many  well-known  names  were  re- 
ceived with  applause,  but  Mirabeau's  with  hooting.  Insult 
and  contempt  showed  how  low  he  stood  in  the  estimation  of 

*  Mirabeau's  Letters,  during  his  residence  in  England,  vol.  I.,  p.  54. 


352  B  I  O  G  R  A  JMI  1  C  A  L      ADDENDA. 

his  colleagues,  and  it  was  even  openly  proposed  to  get  his 
election  cancelled.  He  had  employed  manoeuvres  at  Aix, 
and  at  Marseilles,  which  were  to  be  brought  forward 
against  the  legality  of  his  return  ;  and  he  himself  felt  so 
convinced,  that  his  election  at  Marseilles  could  never  be 
maintained,  that  he  gave  the  preference  to  Aix."  He  had 
tried  to  speak  on  two  or  three  occasions,  but  a  general  mur- 
mur always  reduced  him  to  silence.  But  being  suddenly 
called  upon  to  defend  a  friend,  he  astonished  the  Assembly 
with  ■  a  burst  of  eloquent  generosity,  which  overcame  at  a 
blow,  all  the  prejudices  against  him,  (for  his  reputation  was 
then  at  the  lowest  possible  ebb,)  and  gave  him  instant  popu- 
larity.  His  dejection  had  been  great,  because  of  his  pre- 
vious ill-success,  and  his  emotion  none  the  less  at  this  sud- 
den rise  of  favor.  From  that  time  forth  he  ruled  the  feel- 
ings of  the  nation,  though  at  no  time  did  he  guide,  or  even 
modify  its  opinion.  Like  Burke,  he  loved  the  monarchy, 
while  he  understood  the  people.  The  secret  of  his  power, 
as  of  his  eloquence,  was  an  unlimited  generosity  of  soul. 

Such  was  his  popularity,  that  though  all  titles  of  nobility 
were  abolished,  he  retained  his  own.  and  was  addressed  by 
it ;  and  such  his  authority,  he  needed  but  to  assure  the  peo- 
ple, the  Court,  the  Assembly,  of  any  measure,  they  believed 
that  it  would  inevitably  be  accomplished. 

The  latter  years  of  his  life  were  as  splendid  as  the  for- 
mer had  been  miserable  ;  he  lived  expensively,  neglected 
his  health,  and  died  of  excitement  and  the  effects  of  intem- 
perate pleasures. 

Notwithstanding  his  constant  dissipations,  which  he  sup- 
ported by  large  bribes  paid  him  by  the  Court  to  sustain  their 
cause,  his  industry  never  seemed  to  relax.  He  was  com- 
pelled  to  employ  Dumont,  and  numbers  of  others,  to  write 
his  speeches  for  him,  which  he  read  or  declaimed  in  the  As- 
sembly ;  and  on  one  occasion,  at  least,  he  was  committed 
unawares,  by  delivering  a  speech  which  he  had  not  studied : 
— yet,  in  his  speeches,  as  in  his  literary  compilations,  it  was 
the  addition  of  a  few  bright  thoughts,  poignant  witticisms,  and 


MIRABEAU.  353 

bursts  of  manly  eloquence,  with  which  he  gave  them  his 
own  character  and  his  own  fire.  He  possessed  a  bold  and 
rapid  power  of  ordering  and  organizing  ;  but  for  cool  and 
judicious  arrangement,  for  legal  chicane  or  intrigue,  he 
had  neither  the  adroitness  nor  the  patience.  He  never  dis- 
covered the  least  trace  of  analytical  or  metaphysical  talent, 
nor  the  head  for  tedious  investigation.  It  was  by  principle, 
by  the  wisdom  of  the  heart,  the  instinct  of  honor,  the  logic 
of  courage,  the  flashing  light  of  passion,  he  saw  all  that  he 
saw  ;  his  enormous  pride  precluded  form  and  ceremony  ; 
his  unbounded  hope,  and  self-reliance,  carried  him  over  the 
difficulties,  and  sustained  him  through  the  sorrows  which 
they  had  themselves  created.  It  is  probable  that  a  stronger 
man,  take  him  altogether,  never  appeared  in  France ;  that 
there  have  been  greater,  few  will  deny  ;  for  his  strength 
wasted  itself  in  struggling  against  obstacles  created  by  its 
injudicious  exhibition  ;  he  drew  down  the  rock  upon  himself, 
and  then  put  forth  all  his  force  to  sustain  it. 

His  death  was  indeed  a  national  calamity  ;  Danton  alone 
resembled  him,  and  Danton  was  but  a  vulgar  Mirabeau. 
There  was  no  heart  strong  enough,  after  them,  to  feel  and 
guide  the  nation. 

Mirabeau  died  April  2nd,  1791.  His  funeral  was  an  his- 
torical event,  and  the  whole  nation  felt  his  death. 

30* 


354  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 


DANTON. 

George  James  Danton,  born  at  Arcis-sur-Aube,  October 
26th,  1759,  was  a  starving  advocate  until  the  age  of  thirty, 
when  he  mingled  with  the  Jacobins  in  Paris,  and  became 
their  leading  orator.  "  His  great  stature,  commanding  front 
and  voice  of  thunder,  made  him  the  fit  leader  of  a  band 
more  timid  or  less  ferocious  than  himself." — Alison.  He 
rose  in  audacity  and  influence  with  the  Jacobins.  "  Prodi- 
gal in  expense,  and  drowned  in  debt,  he  had  no  chance,  at 
any  period,  even  of  personal  freedom,  but  in  constantly  ad- 
vancino;  with  the  fortunes  of  the  Revolution.  Like  Mira- 
beau,  he  was  the  slave  of  sensual  passions  ;  like  him  he  was 
the  terrific  leader,  during  his  ascendency,  of  the  ruling- 
class  ;  but  he  shared  the  character,  not  of  the  Patricians  who 
commenced  the  Revolution,  but  of  the  Plebeians  who  con- 
summated its  wickedness.  Inexorable  in  general  measures, 
he  was  indulgent,  humane,  and  even  generous  to  individu- 
als ;  the  author  of  the  massacres  of.  the  2nd  of  September, 
he  saved  all  those  who  fled  to  him,  and  spontaneously  lib- 
erated his  personal  adversaries  from  prison.  Individual  el- 
evation and  the  safety  of  his  party  were  his  ruling  objects ; 
a  revolution  appeared  a  game  of  hazard,  where  the  stake 
was  the  life  of  the  losing  party ;  the  strenuous  supporter  of 
exterminating  cruelty  after  the  10th  of  August,  he  was 
among  the  first  to  recommend  a  return  to  humanity,  after 
the  danger  was  past." — Alison. 

"Danton  was  more  capable  than  any  other  of  being  the 
leader  whom  all  ardent  imaginations  desired,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  giving  unity  to  the  revolutionary  movements.  He 
had  formerly  tried  the  bar,  but  without  success.     Poor  and 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  355 

consumed  by  passions,  he  then  rushed  into  the  political  com- 
motions  with  ardor,  and  probably  with  hopes.  He  was  ig- 
norant, but  endowed  with  a  superior  understanding,  and  a 
vast  imagination.  His  athletic  figure,  his  flat  and  somewhat 
African  features,  his  thundering  voice,  his  eccentric,  but 
somewhat  grand  images,  captivated  his  auditors  at  the  Cor- 
deliers and  the  sections.  His  face  expressed  by  turns,  the 
brutal  passions,  jollity,  and  even  good-nature.  Danton 
neither  envied  nor  hated  anybody,  but  his  audacity  was  ex- 
traordinary, and  in  certain  moments  of  excitement,  he  was 
capable  of  executing  all  that  the  atrocious  mind  of  Marat 
was  capable  of  conceiving.  ^ 

"  Danton,  the  impassioned,  violent,  fickle,  and  by  turns, 
cruel  and  generous  man  : —  Danton,  though  the  slave  of 
his  passions,  must  have  been,"  from  his  nature,  "  incorrup- 
tible. Under  pretence  of  compensating  him  for  the  loss  of 
his  former  place  of  advocate  in  the  council,  the  Court  gave 
him  considerable  sums.  But  though  it  contrived  to  pay,  it 
could  not  gain  him.  He  continued,  nevertheless,  to  ha- 
rangue and  excite  the  mob  against  it.  When  he  was  re- 
proached with  not  fulfilling  his  bargain,  he  replied  that,  in 
order  to  keep  the  means  of  serving  the  Court,  he  was  obliged 
in  appearance  to  treat  it  as  an  enemy.  Danton  was  there- 
fore the  most  formidable  leader  of  those  bands  which  were 
won  and  guided  by  public  oratory.  But  audacious,,  and 
fond  of  hurrying  forward  to  the  decisive  moment,  he  was 
not  capable  of  that  assiduous  toil  which  the  thirst  of  rule  re- 
quires ;  and,  though  he  possessed  great  influence  over  the 
conspirators,  he  did  not  yet  govern  them.  He  was  merely 
capable  when  they  hesitated,  of  rousing  their  courage  and 
propelling  them  to  a  goal  by  a  decisive  plan  of  operations." 
— Thiers. 

When  the  advance  of  the  Prussians  against  France  was 
known  at  Paris,  and  occasioned  the  greatest  consternation, 
Danton  put  himself  at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  at  once  adopted 
the  most  energetic  measures. '  He  repaired  to  the  commune 
and  suggested  that  a  list  of  all  indigent  persons  be  prepared 


356  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

at  the  sections,  and  that  they  be  furnished  with  pay  and 
arms.     In  this  manner  was  the  reign  of  terror  begun,  by  or- 
ganizing the  paupers,  bankrupts,  thieves,  outlaws,  and  rob- 
bers of  the  city  against  the  better  classes,  who,  the  more  per- 
fectly  to  serve  the  predominance  of  the  mob,  were  visited 
and  disarmed.     "Let  the  reader  fancy  to  himself  a  vast 
metropolis,  the  streets  of  which  were  a  few  days    before 
alive  with  the  concourse  of  carriages,  and  with  citizens  con- 
stantly passing  and  repassing — let  him  fancy  to  himself,  I 
say,  streets  so  populous  and  so  animated,  suddenly  struck 
with  the  dead  silence  of  the  grave,  before  sunset,  on  a  fine 
summer  evening.     All  the  shops  are  shut ;  everybody  re- 
tires into  the  interior  of  his  house,  trembling  for  life  and 
property ;   all  are  in  fearful  expectation  of  the  events  of  a 
night  in  which  even  the  efforts  of  despair  are  not  likely  to 
afibrd  the  least  resource  to  any  individual.     The  sole  ob- 
ject of  the  domiciliary  visits,  it  is  pretended,  is  to  search  for 
arms,  yet  the  gates  of  the  city  are  shut  and  guarded  with  the 
strictest  vigilance,  and  boats  are  stationed  on  the  river,  at 
regular  distances,  filled  with  armed  men.     Every  one  sup- 
poses himself  to  be  informed  against.      Everywhere  per- 
sons and  property  are  put  into  concealment.     Everywhere 
are  heard  the  interrupted  sounds  of  the  muffled  hammer, 
with  cautious  knock  completing  the  hiding-place.     Roofs, 
garrets,  sinks,  chimneys — all  are  just  the  same  to  a  fear  in- 
capable of  calculating  any  risk.     One  man,  squeezed  up 
behind  the  wainscot  which  has  been  nailed  back  on  him, 
seems  to  form  a  part  of  the  wall  •  another  is  suffocated  with 
fear  and  heat  between  two  mattresses  ;  a  third,  rolled  up  in 
a  cask,  loses  all  sense  of  existence  by  the  tension  of  his 
sinews.     Apprehension  is  stronger  than  pain.     Men  trem- 
ble, but  they  do  not  shed  tears ;  the  heart  shivers,  the  eye 
is  dull,  and  the  breast  contracted.     Women  on  this  occasion 
display  prodigies  of  tenderness  and  intrepidity.     It  was  by 
them  most  of  the  men  were  concealed.     It  was  one  o'clock 
in  the  morning  when  the  domiciliary  visits  began.     Patroles, 
consisting  of  sixty  pikcmen,  were  in  every  street.     The 


D  A  N  T  O  N.  357 

nocturnal  tumult  of  so  many  armed  men ;  the  incessant 
knocks  to  make  people  open  their  doors ;  the  crash  of  those 
that  were  burst  off  their  hinges  ;  and  the  continual  uproar 
and  revelling  which  took  place  throughout  the  night  in  all 
the  public  houses,  formed  a  picture  which  "will  never  be  ef- 
faced from  my  memory." — Peltier  in  Thiers. 

By  this  measure  of  Danton's,  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand 
persons  were  taken  from  their  homes,  and  put  in  confine- 
ment. The  greater  part  perished  by  massacre,  or  the  guil- 
lotine, or  the  severity  of  their  sufferings.  All  the  liberal 
and  enlightened  men  of  Paris,  and  all  who  favored  the 
cause  of  royalty  or  religion,  or  anything  but  Jacobinism  and 
the  mob,  were  thus  swept  together  into  a  heap  and  extin- 
guished. There  remained  none  to  rule,  but  Danton,  Robes- 
pierre, and  their  associates. 

By  the  contrivance  of  Danton,  the  massacres  of  the  pris- 
oners taken  on  the  night  of  the  domiciliary  visits,  were  or- 
ganized and  carried  into  execution. 

At  the  same  time  he  advocated  measures  of  defence 
against  the  Austrians.  Of  Danton  and  Dumouriez,  one  the 
first  political,  the  other  the  first  military  leader  of  the  Jac- 
obin republic,  Thiers  says :  "  Danton  having  shown  as  firm 
a  countenance  at  Paris,  as  did  Dumouriez  at  St.  Menehould, 
thev  were  regarded  as  the  two  saviours  of  the  Revolution, 
and  they  were  applauded  together  at  all  the  public  places 
where  they  made  their  appearance.  A  certain  instinct 
drew  these  two  men  towards  one  another,  notwithstanding 
the  difference  of  their  habits.  They  were  the  rakes  of  the 
two  systems,  who  united  with  the  like  genius,  the  like  love 
of  pleasure,  but  with  a  different  sort  of  corruption.  Danton 
had  that  of  the  people,  Dumouriez  that  of  the  courts  •  but, 
more  lucky  than  his  colleague,  the  latter  had  only  served 
generously  and  sword  in  hand,  while  Danton  had  been  so 
unfortunate  (?)  as  to  sully  a  great  character  by  the  atroci- 
ties of  September." 

Thus  speaks  the  moral  Thiers. 


358  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

Danton  proposed  the  organization  of  the  war  of  La 
Vendee. 

When  the  leaders  of  the  moderate  party  were  all  fled  or 
put  to  death,  and  Marat  had  fallen  by  assassination,  Danton 
and  Robespierra  remainded  undisputed  masters  of  the  Re- 
public. But  it  was  impossible  for  two  such  chiefs  to  stand 
long  upon  the  same  platform.  The  cunning  and  ostensible 
virtue  of  Robespierre,  triumphed  over  the  dissolute  courage 
and  carelessness  of  Danton. 

"  An  incredible  mania  of  suspicion  and  accusation  pre- 
vailed. The  longest  and  most  steady  revolutionary  life  was 
now  no  security,  and  a  person  was  liable  to  be  assimilated 
in  a  day,  in  an  hour,  to  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  republic. 
The  imagination  could  not  so  soon  break  the  spell  in  which 
it  was  held  by  Danton,  whose  daring  and  whose  eloquence 
had  infused  new  courage  in  all  decisive  circumstances  ;  but 
Danton  carried  into  the  Revolution  a  most  vehement  passion 
for  the  object,  without  any  hatred  against  persons  ;  and  this 
was  not  enough.  The  spirit  of  revolution  is  composed  of 
passion  for  the  object  and  hatred  against  those  v/ho  throw 
obstacles  in  its  way — Danton  had  but  one  of  these  senti- 
ments. In  regard  to  revolutionary  measures  tending  to 
strike  the  rich,  to  rouse  the  indifferent  to  activity,  and  to  de- 
velop the  resources  of  the  nation,  he  had  gone  all  lengths  and 
had  devised  the  boldest  and  most  violent  means ;  but,  easy 
and  forbearing  towards  individuals,  he  did  not  discover  ene- 
mies in  all ;  he  saw  among  them  men  diifering  in  character 
and  intellect,  whom  it  behooved  him  to  gain  or  to  take,  M'ith 
the  degree  of  their  energy,  such  as  it  was.  He  shook  hands 
with  noble^  generals,  dined  with  contractors,  conversed  fa- 
miliarly with  men  of  all  parties,  sought  pleasure,  and  had 
drunk  deeply  of  it  during  the  Revolution." — Thiers.  In 
fine,  it  began  to  be  whispered  by  the  friends  of  Robespierre 
and  others,  that  Danton  was  not  a  good  democrat;  that  he 
preferred  elegant  society ;  loved  his  ease  ;  did  not  care  es- 
sentially what  course  aflairs  might  take,  so  long  as  he  stood 
at  their  head.     Those  who  did  not  dare  attack  him  openly 


D  ANT  O  N.  359 

slaadered  his  friends — accused  them  of  lukewarmness  in  the 
good  cause  of  liberty.  It  began  at  last  to  be  rumored  that 
Danton  had  no  distinct  party  to  support  him,  but  was  rather 
a  popular'  man  in  general,  who  consulted  his  own  ambition 
more  than  the  "  public  good."  Reports  of  the  most  im- 
possible conspiracies  were  got  up,  and  exaggerated  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  implicating  the  friends  of  Danton. 

Meanwhile  Danton  himself  was  too  frequently  absent  from 
the  club  of  JacobinSj.where  all  was  organized.  Robespierre, 
on  the  contrary,  neglected  nothing,  and  was  always  in  his 
place.  Danton  had  to  apologize  for  his  seeming  lukewarm- 
ness, and  associating  with  moderate  persons  or  suspected 
aristocrats. 

He  gradually  lost  ground  wdth  the  party.  He  was  at 
length  denounced  as  a  bad  statesman,  in  his  absence.  This 
was  the  first  hint  of  his  failing  authority.  The  Convention, 
soon  after,  were  about  appointing  a  committee  of  public 
welfare,  to  conduct  the  wars  of  the  republic.  Robespierre 
was  appointed  and  Danton  with  him ;  but  he  had  lately 
married  a  young  wife  of  whom  he  was  deeply  enamored, 
and  was,  moreover,  weary  of  the  Revolution,  and  unfit  for  the 
details  of  public  business.  With  the  advice  of  his  friends 
he  solicited  permission  to  retire  to  Arcis-sur-Aube.  As  the 
nation  had  beojun  to  feel  its  strenfjth,  the  leader  who  had 
conducted  them  through  the  perils  of  the  Revolution,  and 
prepared  all  its  most  desperate  measures,  was  no  longer  felt 
to  be  necessary.  His  leave  of  absence  was  granted  him. 
He  used  it  for  two  months,  and  lost  his  hold  upon  the  pub- 
lic in  the  rapid  current  of  affairs.  The  war  of  La  Vendee 
went  on  without  him.  On  his  return,  it  appeared  that  he 
did  not  approve  of  the  dreadful  massacres  that  had  hap- 
pened in  his  absence.  Though  a  partisan,  a  Jacobin,  and  an 
inventor  of  revolutionary  measures,  he  had  begun  to  con- 
demn the  blind  and  ferocious  employment  of  them.  A 
strong  party  was  soon  formed  against  him  in  the  club,  which 
interrupted  him  when  speaking,  and  cried  out  against  mod- 


360  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

erates.      Danton  was  opposed   and  questioned  in  the*As- 
sembly.  • 

He  was  accused  of  a  conspiracy  to  set  Louis  XVII.  upon 
the  throne,  and  of  having  intended  to  emigrate  to  Switzer- 
land. He  repelled  the  charge  successfully.  Robespierre 
defended  and  successfully  supported  him ;  a  measure  by 
which  he  proclaimed  his  own  superiority,  and  destroyed  the 
power  of  Danton  forever.  His  party  were  weary  of  the 
atrocities  of  the  Revolution,  and  vainly  opposed  the  more 
furious  of  the  Jacobins. 

I^anton,  meanwhile,  continued  to  absent  himself  from 
Robespierre  and  the  Jacobins,  which  gave  opportunities  to 
his  enemies,  and  nourished  Robespierre's  suspicions.  Dan- 
ton, discovering  the  course  of  affairs,  demanded  an  inter- 
view, and  remonstrated  against  certain  proposed  atrocities ; 
Robespierre  replied  coolly,  Danton  sarcastically — and  this 
was  his  first  step  towards  the  guillotine. 

Danton's  friends  warned  him  of  his  danger,  and  implored 
him  to  rouse  himself,  but  he  replied  that  he  would  rather  be 
guillotined  than  guillotine — that  his  life  was  not  worth  the 
trouble,  and  he  was  weary  of  humanity.  "  The  members 
of  the  committee  seek  my  death  ;  well,  if  they  effect  their 
purpose,  they  will  be  execrated  as  tyrants ;  their  houses 
will  be  razed  ;  salt  will  be  sown  there ;  and  upon  the  same 
spot  a  gibbet,  dedicated  to  the  punishment  of  crimes,  will  be 
planted.  But  my  friends  will  say  of  me  that  I  have  been 
a  good  father,  a  good  friend,  and  a  good  citizen.  They  will 
not  forget  me  :  No — ^I  would  rather  be  guillotined  than  guil- 
lotine."— Mignet,from  Thiers — Edit.  Note. 

When  in  the  Conciergerie  prison,  he  jested  with  his 
friends  contemptuously  on  Robespierre,  and  remarked  that 
they  did  not  know  how  to  govern  men.  Once,  says  Thiers, 
and  once  only,  he  regretted  having  taken  part  in  the  Revo- 
lution, and  said  it  was  better  to  be  a  poor  fisherman  than  a 
ruler  of  men. 

Before  the  tribunal  he  showed  his  accustomed  grandeur, 
and  demanded  to  see  his  accusers ;  scouting,  at  the  same 


D  A  N  T  O  N  .  36  1 

time,  the  fear  of  death.  "  Life,"  he  said,  "  was  a  burthen 
from  which  he  longed  to  be  delivered."  By  the  great 
power  of  his  eloquence  he  almost  defeated  the  machinations 
of  his  enemies.  No  prisoner  ever  defended  himself  with  a 
more  terrible  power.  The  trial  continued  four  days.  All 
the  charges  against  him  proved  ineffectual.  But  the  jury 
were  intimidated  by  some  of  the  more  furious  among  them, 
and  he  was  condemned,  together  with  his  friends. 

At  the  scaffold  he  gave  way  to  no  fear — but  thinking  of 
his  wife,  was  moved  for  an  instant.  His  death  was  as 
heroic  as  his  life.* 

He  was  beheaded  April  5th,  1794,  in  the  thirty-sixth 
year  of  his  age. 

With  great  qualities  he  united  an  atrocious  mind,  un- 
scrupulous, proud,  and  equal  to  any  extremity  of  wicked- 
ness that  served  his  purpose  ;  he  was  not  a  mere  murderer, 
yet,  with  perfect  coolness,  could  devise  the  assassination  of 
thousands  of  the  innocent  and  guilty.  "  Prudhomme  de- 
votes twenty  pages  in  his  History  of  Crimes,  to  conversa- 
tions and  papers,  which  prove  with  what  frightful  uncon- 
cern this  terrible  demagogue  arranged  everything  for  the 
great  massacres." — Thiers,  Ed.  Note  in. 

The  history  of  Thiers  is  partial,  even  Jacobinical  in  its 
spirit.  The  author  discovers  an  evident  partiality  for  Dan- 
ton,  and  no  very  violent  hatred  of  Robespierre.  Men  are 
not  generally  aware,  that  many  whom  they  now  overlook, 
perhaps  despise  as  unequal  to  the  strife  of  order  and  vir- 
tuous enterprise,  need  but  the  stimulus  of  fame,  and  the  op- 
portunities of  revolution,  to  become  great  in  wickedness — to 
rival  the  Scyllas,  Tamerlanes,  Robespierres,  and  Dantons. 

*  See  the  excellent  account  of  in  Thiers,  vol.  II. 

31 


362  BIOGRAPHICAL    ADDENDA, 


BENJAMIN  CONSTANT. 

Henry  Benjamin  Constant  de  Rebecque  was  born  at 
Lausanne,  in  the  canton  of  Vaud,  of  a  French  family  who 
took  refuge  in  Switzerland,  about  the  beginning  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  from  religious  persecution.  He  was  ed- 
ucated in  the  school  of  Voltaire,  and  remained  tinctured  with 
scepticism  through  life.  He  had  the  misfortune  early  in 
life  to  lose  his  mother,  and  suffered  from  his  father's  indif- 
ference and  neglect.  His  early  promise  was  great,  even  to 
precocity,  and  discovered  his  inclination  to  men,  and  aptitude 
for  the  world. 

His  education  was  continued  at  Oxford  in  England,  where 
he  became  acquainted  with  Mackintosh,  Erskine,  Graham, 
and  other  persons  afterwards  distinguished  on  the  liberal 
side  in  England. 

In  1787  he  went  to  Paris,  associated  with  the  philosophi- 
cal reformers  of  the  day,  and  led  a  dissipated  life  to  the  in- 
jury of  his  health.  On  a  sudden  he  .conceived  the  idea  of 
travelling  over  England  on  foot,  and  actually  accomplished 
the  plan,  living  on  a  pittance  and  associating  with  the  ordi- 
nary people  of  the  country.  His  father  called  him  home, 
and  forgave  him  this  freak  on  condition  of  his  taking  the 
post  of  chamberlain  in  the  Court  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick. 
Here  his  sarcastic  contempt  for  the  antiquated  ceremonies 
of  the  Court  made  him  an  object  of  general  dislike.  He 
made  epigrams  on  the  courtiers,  derided  their  customs,  and 
made  no  secret  of  his  sceptical  principles.  To  make  mat- 
ters worse,  he  married  a  noble  lady  in  the  service  of  the 
Duchess  of  Brunswick,  whose  feudal  prejudices  and  proud 
temper  soon  brought  about  the  necessity  for  a  divorce. 


BENJAMIN     CONSTANT.  363 

After  this  event  he  returned  to  Switzerland,  and  in  1794, 
met,  for  the  first  time,  with  the  celebrated  Madame  de  Stael, 
whose  character  at  once  impressed  him  with  admiration  and 
respect.  Of  her  he  says,  "  such  an  union  of  imposing  and 
attractive  qualities,  so  much  justness  of  thought,  such 
charms,  simplicity  and  frankness.  She  is  truly  a  superior 
being,  only  to  be  found  once  in  a  century." 

The  overthrow  of  the  terrorists  in  Paris,  was  a  fortunate 
moment  for  his  return  to  the  capital.  This  was  in  1795. 
Constant  undertook  to  defend  the  Directory,  then  in  a  state 
of  disreputable  weakness  and  vacillation  between  the  old 
and  new. 

In  179G,  being  in  the  thirtieth  year  of  his  age,  Constant 
published  a  conservative  pamphlet  in  favor  of  sustaining  the 
authority  of  the  government.  Bonaparte  being  now  First 
Consul,  Constant  was  elected  one  of  the  Tribunats,  charged 
with  defending  the  State  against  the  encroachment  of  des- 
potism. Bonaparte  put  an  end  to  this  head  without  an  arm, 
by  driving  Constant  and  de  Stael  into  exile.  This  lady,  of 
course,  gained  a  vast  reputation.  The  friends  retreated  into 
Germany,  and  were  received  at  Wiemar  by  Goethe  and  his 
literati  with  the  greatest  honor. 

Constant  began  now  to  compose  his  work  on  Religion,  but 
meddled  no  more  with  Napoleon.  In  1813,  after  the  fail- 
ure of  the  Russian  invasion,  he  reappeared  in  politics,  in  a 
work  entitled — "  The  Sjnrit  of  Conquest  and  Usurpation  in 
its  relations  to  Modern  Civilization,'^  in  which  he  traced  with 
great  power  the  destructive  career  of  Bonaparte,  and  showed 
the  ruin  to  society  that  must  follow  from  the  principles 
which  actuated  him.  He  showed  the  necessity  of  establish- 
ing a  new  and  constitutional  system  of  government,  to  pro- 
tect the  laws,  learning,  industry,  and  civilization  of  society. 

In  1814,  on  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  Constant  went  to 
Paris  and  wrote  in  favor  of  the  legitimate  sovereign.  Na- 
poleon's return  from  Elba,  called  out  violent  invectives  from 
his  pen  ; — he  styles  him  an  Attila,  a  Ghengis-Khan.  But 
no   sooner  was  the  Emperor  fairly  seated  on  his  throne, 


364  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

when  Constant  accepted  office  under  him,  with  the  title  of 
Councillor  of  State.  He  thought  if  he  could  not  prevent 
the  despotism,  he  would  make  the  best  he  could  of  it  for  the 
country. 

The  second  exile  of  Napoleon  left  Constant  in  danger  of 
his  life  from  the  new  government.  He  took  refuge  in  Eng- 
land for  fifteen  years,  and  apologized  for  his  conduct  in  an 
account  of  the  "  Hundred  Days  of  Napoleon. ^^ 

Returning  to  Paris  at  the  end  of  this  period,  he  again  en- 
tered into  politics,  wrote  political  pamphlets,  and  became  a 
principal  editor  of  the  "  Minerva,"  a  periodical  review. 

In  1819  he  became  a  member  of  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties. The  ultras  endeavored  to  expel  him  on  the  plea  of 
his  being  a  foreigner.  He  defended  himself  in  a  three  days' 
trial,  and  proved  his  derivation  from  a  family  of  French 
Protestants.  After  this,  he  sat  in  the  Chambers  till  his 
death.  It  is  said  of  this  popular  orator  that  his  form  was 
tall,  his  head  slightly  stooping,  his  face  care-worn,  but  orig- 
inal and  expressive. 

After  the  Revolution  of  July  1830,  he  was  called  to  be- 
come one  of  the  first  Ministers  of  State ;  but  he  was  al- 
ready struck  with  a  fatal  malady,  and  died  in  December  of 
the  same  year,  at  the  age  of  sixty-three.  His  funeral  was 
made  a  time  of  national  mourning.  He  was  reckoned 
among  the  greatest  defenders  of  constitutional  liberty. 

In  his  great  work  on  Religion,  which  occupied  all  the  leis- 
ure of  thirty  years  of  his  life,  he  assumes  that  the  relig- 
ious principle  is  inherent  in  the  human  soul,  but  that  the 
forms  which  express  it  are  always,  and  of  necessity,  tran- 
sient and  perishable.  These  forms,  he  says,  are  the  doc- 
trines and  worship  of  all  nations,  heathen  and  Christian. 
He  makes  no  exception  in  favor  of  Christianity,  though  he 
treats  it  with  marked  respect. 


RO  Y  E  R-COLL  ARD.  365 


ROYER-COLLARD. 

Pierre  Paul  Royer-Collard  was  born  in  a  small  town 
of  Champagne,  June  2181,  1763.  His  parents  were  respec- 
table farmers.  He  showed  talent,  and  was  sent  to  a  col- 
lege of  monks  to  be  educated.  His  Protestant  inclinations 
appeared  early,  and  not  inclining  to  the  church,  he  studied 
law,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at  Paris. 

Imbibing  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution,  he  became  secretary 
of  the  Paris  municipality,  but  left  Paris  and  remained  con- 
cealed through  the  bloody  days  of  the  Reign  of  Terror ;  but 
he  did  not  desert  his  post  in  the  Convention  until  he  had 
raised  his  voice  asrainst  the  furious  measures  of  the  Jacobins. 

In  May,  1797,  when  the  Directory  was  established,  M. 
Collard  was  appointed  one  of  the  Council  of  Five  Hundred, 
and  soon  formed  an  intimacv  with  members  of  the  moderate 
monarchical  party.  He  even  corresponded  secretly  with  the 
Bourbons,  until  the  time  that  Bonaparte  began  to  predomi- 
nate. He  then  turned  his  mind  to  philosophy,  and  was  in- 
fluenced  by  the  works  of  Reed  and  Stewart,  principally  be- 
cause of  the  spirit  of  morality  which  they  uphold.  In  1811 
he  was  appointed  professor  of  Philosophy  in  Paris,  and  for 
three  years  drew  considerable  audiences.  His  discoveries 
did  much  to  revive  the  philosophical  spirit  in  France,  which 
had  been  plunged  in  the  grossest  materialism.  Royer-Col- 
lard undertook  to  revive  spiritualism,  and  taught  the  doc- 
trine of  Ideas,  and  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  His  man- 
ner was  diffuse,  but  plain  and  grave,  his  influence  moral  and 
salutary  in  the  extreme. 

On  the  return  of  the  Bourbons,  R.  Collard  entered  again 
into  political  life,  and  became  director-general  of  the  library, 

31* 


366  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

with  influence  in  preparing  laws  relative  to  the  liberty  of 
the  press,  which  he  supported  inconjunction  with  legitimacy, 
holding  them  equally  indispensable.  His  position  was  a 
philosophical  mean,  between  the  bigots  and  the  liberals.  Yet 
he  was  attacked  as  a  revolutionist  by  the  friends  of  Charles 
X.,  who  neglected  his  advice,  and  consequently  lost  the 
crown  by  the  Revolution  which  placed  Louis  Philippe  upon 
the  throne.  He  seems  to  have  been  very  nearly  the  most 
respected  and  respectable  statesman  of  his  day,  but  a  little 
too  theoretic  and  abstract  to  have  a  solid  influence  in  affairs. 
Yet  in  1827,  so  great  was  the  confidence  of  the  nation  in 
his  integrity,  he  was  chosen  deputy  by  no  fewer  than  seven 
constituencies  at  once,  and  became  President  of  the  Cham- 
bers. 

After  the  Revolution  of  July,  1830,  Royer-Collard,  who 
had  always  supported  legitimacy,  and  had  been  the  friend 
of  the  Bourbons — though  they  owed  their  ruin  to  neglect  of 
his  public  advice, — found  it  necessary  to  retire  from  public 
office  at  the  age  of  sixty-three.  Though  he  remained  fif- 
teen years  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  he  made  but  two 
speeches  in  all  that  time-^-one  to  defend  hereditary  dignities  for 
the  peerage,  and  a  second  to  support  the  liberty  of  the  press. 
It  is  said  of  him  that  he  was  the  first  to  introduce  philosoph- 
ical principles  into  government  in  France,  and  that  he  gave 
to  her  present  generation  of  statesmen  their  political  educa- 
tion. In  private  life  he  was  exemplary,  and  avoided  in- 
trigue. His  countenance  was  manly  and  grave, — his  wit 
T^enetratinjT  and  excellent. 


LAMARTINE.  367 


LAMARTINE. 

Alphonse  de  Lamartine.  the  latest  of  distinguished 
French  Poets,  was  born  October  21st,  1780,  at  Macon,  on 
the  Saone.  His  family  name  was  De  Prat ;  but  on  the 
death  of  his  maternal  uncle,  the  poet  inheriting  his  fortune, 
assumed  his  name,  Be  Lamartine.  His  father  was  a  Major  of 
Cavalry  under  Louis  XVI.  ;  his  mother  the  grand-daughter 
of  an  Under  Governess  of  the  Princess  of  Orleans.  These 
were  dangerous  circumstances  in  the  Revolution  ; — the  ear- 
liest remembrances  young  Lamartine  had  of  his  father  were 
of  visiting  him  in  a  dungeon.  But  the  indiscriminating  axe 
happened  to  spare  the  royal  Cavalry  Major  ; — he  exchanged 
his  prison  for  a  residence  in  the  little  village  of  Milles. 
There  the  future  poet  was  so  fortunate  as  to  pass  a  quiet 
boyhood,  surrounded  by  the  most  beautiful  landscape  ; — its 
valleys  and  streams  and  high  mountains,  with  memories  of 
his  mother  and  sisters,  are  l-eflected  in  the  poet's  writings. 

Lamartine  received  his  collegiate  education  at  Belley. 
Having  taken  his  degree,  he  lived  some  months  at  Lyons, 
travelled  for  a  time  in  Italy,  and  finally  arrived  at  Paris, — 
the  end  of  all  Frenchmen — during  the  latter  days  of  the  Em- 
pire. It  is  said,  that  he  was  not  altogether  proof  against  the 
dissipations  of  the  French  metropolis.  He,  however,  pur- 
sued his  studies  with  some  dibVence.  In  1813  he  went 
again  to  Italy  ; — the  impressions  of  its  scenes  and  influences 
are  observable  in  his  subsequent  poems. 

Napoleon  fell,  and  Lamartine,  having  returned  from  Italy, 
became  a  Bourbon  body-guard.  The  Hundred  Days  fol- 
lowed soon  after,  during  which  he  was  wise  enough  to  keep 
quiet.     Love  however,  had  probably  something  to  do  with 


368  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

his  reserve.  But  Elvire  died : — Lamartine,  awaking  from 
his  sorrow,  became  a  poet. 

The  "  Meditations  Poetiques^'  were  published  in  1820. 
It  was  a  long  time  before  the  young  poet  could  find  a  pur- 
chaser for  his  manuscripts.  "  At  last,"  says  a  Parisian  cor- 
respondent  in  one  of  our  Journals,  "  a  publisher  named  Ni- 
col — more  discerning  or  more  generous  than  others — ac- 
cepted the  manuscript,  that  was  everywhere  stained  with 
tears,  and  it  soon  appeared,  without  the  support  of  a  name  or 
even  a  preface.  Lamartine's  wish  respecting  his  work, 
seems  to  be  expressed  in  the  invocation  in  the  last  verse  of 
the  "  Meditations." 

Q,uand  lajeuille  des  bois  tombe  dans  la  prairie, 
Le  vent  du  soi  se  live  et  Varrache  aux  vallons  ; 

El  moi,  je  suis  semblable  a  lafeuillejietrie 
Emporlez-moi  comme  eUe,  orageux  AquUlons ! 

When  the  leaf  of  the  wood  falls  in  the  meadow, 
The  night  wind  rises  and  blows  it  to  the  valleys — 
And  me — I  am  like  to  the  withered  leaf; 
Bear  me  away  like  it.  oh,  stormy  North  Wind  !" 

The  "  Meditations"  took  the  public  by  surprise.  They 
were  different  from  all  previous  French  poetry,  both  in  sen- 
timent and  execution.     Their  popularity  was  sudden  and 

universal.     More  than  fifty  thousand  copies  were  sold. 
His    reputation,    and    the     loyalty    he    had    preserved, 

(through  indolence,  perhaps,  as  much  as  through  principle,) 
procured  the  favor  of  the  government,  and  he  was  attached 
to  the  Legation  at  Florence.  A  short  time  afterwards  he 
married  an  English  girl  of  much  wealth  and  beauty.  The 
death  of  his  uncle  also  added  to  his  means,  so  that  he  was 
now  independent.  His  next  appointment  was  as  Secretary 
to  the  Embassy  at  Naples — then  in  the  same  capacity  at 
London. 

In  1823  he  published  his  "  Mort  de  Socrate" — not  so  suc- 
cessful as  the  "  Meditations."  It  has  many  beautiful  pas- 
sages, but  the  plan  is  unfinished,  the  language  unequal,  and 


LAMARTINE.  369 

the  versification  careless.  These  are  faults,  however,  be- 
longing more  or  less  to  all  Lamartine's  productions ;  his 
poems  are  uniformly  of  a  loose  structure. 

The  ^^Nouvelles  Meditations  Poetiques,''  which  appeared 
the  same  year,  carried  the  public  back  to  the  impressions 
produced  by  his  first  volume.  They  contained  the  same 
bold  and  elevated  sentiments,  and  those  flights  of  imajrination 
so  unusual  in  French  poetry.  Not  long  after  he  was  bold 
(or  rash)  enough  to  attempt  the  addition  of  a  fifth  Canto  to 
"  Ciiilde  Harold."  With  many  fine  passages,  it  was  in 
such  connection  necessarily  a  failure.  It  is  not  within  the 
capacity  of  Lamartine  to  attain  to  the  depth  and  volume, 
and  sombre  coloring  of  the  powerful  current  of  the  Eng- 
lishman's poetry.  It  was  productive,  however,  of  one  im- 
portant result.  It  contained  at  the  end  a  bitter  reflection 
on  the  fallen  state  of  Italy,  for  which  a  Neapolitan  officer 
challenged  him,  and  the  poet  nearly  lost  his  life  in  the 
duel. 

Returning  to  France  in  1829,  he  put  forth  the  ^^  Harmonies 
Portigues  et  Religieuses  ;"  but  as  the  times  were  greatly 
disturbed,  and  France  not  very  religious,  they  did  not  at- 
tract much  attention.  The  next  year  he  was  made  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Academy,  and  afterwards  appointed  Minister  to 
Greece.  Before  he  could  go,  the  Revolution  of  July  oc- 
curred, and  the  powers  tiiat  appointed  him  were  overthrown. 

A  new  phase  of  his  life  now  took  place.  When  the  new 
dynasty  was  plainly  established,  the  poet  concluded  to  turn 
politician.  His  first  efforts  on  this  field  were  not  so  success- 
ful as  they  had  been  on  the  field  he  had  left.  He  offered 
himself  as  Deputy  at  Dunkerque  and  at  Toulon — he  was 
defeated  in  both  places. 

Naturally  sick  of  his  new  employment,  he  determined  to 
travel  through  the  East,  and  especially  the  Holy  Land. 
Such  an  exploration  appears  to  have  been  among  his  early 
dreams.     His  boyhood  recollections  account  for  this  desire. 

"  My  mother,"  he  says,  in  some  autobiographical  pas- 
sages  of  his   writings,    "  had  received  from   her  mother, 


370  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

when  on  her  death-bed,  a  beautiful  Royanmont  Bible,  in 
which  she  learned  me  to  read  when  I  was  a  little  child.  This 
Bible  had  many  pictures  of  sacred  subjects,  and  when  I  had 
read  quite  correctly  a  half  page  of  the  history,  my  mother 
would  show  me  a  picture,  and  holding  the  book  open  upon 
her  knees  make  me  contemplate  it  for  my  reward.  *  *  * 
The  silvery,  tender,  solemn  and  impassioned  tone  of  her 
voice,  added  to  all  she  said  an  accent  of  force,  of  charm 
and  of  love  which  remains  still  at  this  moment  in  my  ear — 
alas — after  six  years  silence." 

He  sailed  from  Marseilles  in  May,  1832,  and  occupied 
with  his  tour  thirteen  months.  Though  naturally  suffi- 
ciently simple  in  his  tastes,  he  made  his  pilgrimage  osten- 
tatious and  splendid. 

*'  His  train  consisted  of  twenty  horsemen — his  rich  tent 
was  stored  with  arms  and  luxuries — the  cities  opened  their 
gates  to  him — the  Sheiks  came  out  to  meet  and  salute  him 
-—the  Arabs  of  the  Desert  bowed  themselves  as  he  passed, 
and  the  Governors  became  responsible  for  his  safety  with 
their  heads." 

But  the  ability  to  make  so  brilliant  a  display  could  not 
preserve  him  from  the  deepest  misfortune.  His  young 
daughter,  Julia,  in  whom  much  of  his  happiness  was  bound 
up,  died  at  the  end  of  his  tour — the  vessel  which  brought 
him  to  the  East,  carried  back  her  corpse. 

On  his  return,  he  found  himself  elected  Deputy  from 
Dunkerque.  His  speech,  delivered  in  January,  1834,  dis- 
appointed all  parties.  Everybody  listened  to  it ;  every- 
body admired  it ;  nobody  could  understand  it.  The  poet 
Deputy  remained  alone  as  "  De  Lamartine." 

The  next  year  he  published  "  Jocelyn"  which  added  to 
his  poetical  reputation.  Some  other  productions  have  since 
followed,  mostly  of  unequal  merits. 

Lamartine*s  speeches  on  the  great  question  of  the  East — 
a  topic  which  he  was  prepared  to  understand — embracing 
proposals  for  the  bases  of  a  new  European  system,  first 
gave  him  position  in  the  Chambers.     Subsequent  speeches 


LAMARTINE.  371 

against  the  death-punishment,  in  favor  of  foundlings,  and 
on  similar  subjects,  put  him  subsequently  at  the  head  of 
what  are  called  in  France,  the  Socialists — a  party,  which 
like  a  clique  under  the  same  name  in  this  country,  have  no 
definite  ends  in  view,  and  no  definite  means  by  which  they 
propose  to  attain  them. 

The  qualities  of  Lamartine's  writings  are  peculiar  to  him 
among  French  poets.  He  has  something  of  Rousseau ; 
something  of  De  Stael — but  no  poet  among  his  countrymen 
can  be  compared  with  him.  The  spirit  of  his  verse  is  Eng- 
lish rather  than  French,  thoujjrh  he  lacks  the  English  terse- 
ness.  Instead  of  the  classical  school  of  France,  he  seems  to 
have  made  Young  and  Byron  his  models,  adding  also  the  study 
of  the  romantic  in  the  German  and  British  Poets.  Thus 
it  is,  that  he  yields  himself  up,  as  no  Frenchman  before  him 
has  done,  to  the  dominion  of  a  thoughtful  and  solemn  imag- 
ination. His  chief  characteristics  are  a  dreamy  melan- 
choly often  bordering  on  gloom,  "a  longing  lost  in  sorrow- 
ful misgiving,  an  inclination  to  the  mystical  and  superna- 
tural, and  a  great  predilection  for  poetical  landscape  paint- 
ing." Even  among  English  productions,  his  poems  would 
be  found  to  have  great  depth  and  feeling ;  his  language, 
also,  has  both  variety  and  beauty,  though  usually  too  diffuse, 
and  sometimes  bombastic.  One  quality,  at  least,  he  pos- 
sesses, worthy  of  especial  notice  and  praise — he  is  profoundly 
earnest,  a  characteristic  in  which  the  poetry  of  the  French, 
so  light  and  superficial,  has  been  deficient  ever  since  the 
age  of  Boileau. 

In  addition  to  Cormenin's  striking  "portrait"  of  the  poet- 
politician,  a  passage  may  be  taken  from  the  excellent  cor- 
respondent before  referred  to : — 

"  De  Lamartine  is  of  good  height  and  elegant  form.  His 
face  is  a  little  thin,  and  it  is  marked  by  the  deep  lines 
which  distinguish  the  nervous  man.  His  chin  is  slightly 
projecting,  and  his  nose  large,  and  inclining  to  the  aquiline. 
His  eyebrows  are  heavy,  projecting,  and  quite  arched  ;  and 


372  -     BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

h4s  grayish  hair  is  arranged  with  the  greatest  attention  over 
a  fine  forehead. 

"  M.  de  Lamartine  is  a  man  of  rare  contradictions — he 
is  proud  and  simple,  good-natured  and  ironical,  light  and 
profound,  ambitious  and  indolent ;  he  is  equally  in  love  with 
the  world  and  seclusion,  with  pleasure  and  retirement.  He 
loves  to  be  praised,  and  dislikes  to  make  acquaintances.  In 
conversation  he  hears  himself  only,  and  with  an  extremely 
good-natured  contempt,  he  laughs  at  the  man  whom  he  can- 
not convince,  paining  him  with  his  pride  as  much  as  he 
charms  him  by  his  affability.  With  all  these  faults,  there 
are  few  men  who  have  a  greater  power  over  others  in  con- 
versation, and  though  the  impressions  which  he  leaves  upon 
one's  mind  are  never  deep,  and  always  mingled  of  pleasure 
and  regret,  still  he  is  a  man  whom  one  will  always  wish  to 
see  again. 

"At  his  house  everything  is  in  the  most  exact  order,  and 
though  his  fortune  is  something  wasted,  he  will  be  found  in 
the  midst  of  studied  elegance,  in  which  his  horses  and  doo-s 
share  their  part,  for  horses  and  dogs  are  among  his  favor- 
ites." 

Thus,  "  proud,  simple,  contemptuous,  social,  ambitious,  in- 
dolent— always  talking  of  principle,  but  always  pushed  on 
by  the  impulses  of  imagination — with  theories  so  grand 
that  nobody  can  follow  him,  and  with  so  many  minute  ex- 
ceptions, that  he  can  follow  nobody  else — a  man  of  the  most 
sublime  and  beautiful  thoughts,  yet  lacking  that  common 
sense  which  carries  many  who  are  less  able  to  greater  suc- 
cess— M.  de  Lamartine  is  a  person  who  does  not  well  un- 
derstand himself,  and  who  is  not  well  understood  by  others. 
Well  did  one  who  undertook  to  write  the  poet's  life  close 
the  third  revision  of  his  history  by  saying, 

"  '  Decidemenly  la  hiograpliie  de  M.  de  Lamartine  ne'stpos- 
sihie  qu'apres  sa  mort.' 

"  Decidedly,  the  biography  of  M.  de  Lamartine  is  not 
possible  until  after  his  death." 


G  u  I  z  o  T .  373 


GUIZOT. 

Francois  Pierre  Guillaume  Guizot  was  born  at  Nismes, 
where  his  father  fell  by  the  guillotine,  in  the  general  catas- 
trophe of  the  Dantonist  party.  His  parents  were  Protes- 
tants, and  held  a  respectable  position  in  society.  In  his  sev- 
enth year  his  mother  went  with  him  to  Geneva,  and  placed 
him  in  the  Gymnase  de  Geneva,  where  he  became  a  diligent 
and  excellent  scholar.  His  character  was  early  marked 
by  sense,  and  his  demeanor  by  gravity.  Such  was  his  dil- 
igence, in  four  years  he  had  acquired  six  languages ;  and 
after  six  years  of  study,  he  was  first  of  the  school  in  history 
and  philosophy. 

In  1805,  Guizot  began  his  law  studies  at  Paris,  and  the 
gravity  and  severity  of  his  character,  contributed,  with 
want  of  friends  and  poverty,  to  keep  him  a  long  time  in  ob- 
scurity. 

The  second  year  of  his  residence  in  Paris  brought  him  a 
preceptorship  in  a  family  of  great  respectability  ,•  where  he 
was  treated  accordinor  to  his  singular  merits,  and  brought 
into  connection  with  influential  society. 

In  this  situation  he  became  acquainted  with  Mademoiselle 
Pauline  de  Meulan,  a  lady  of  excellent  attainments  and 
character,  and  of  a  distinguished  family,  but  impoverished 
by  the  Revolution.  She  had  taken  up  the  occupation  of  a 
journalist,  and  was  suddenly  prevented  in  the  course  of  her 
duties  by  a  serious  illness.  Her  family  being  dependent  on 
her  labors,  the  interruption  was  critical,  and  might  have 
been  fatal.  She  is  said  to  have  made  a  public  offer  for  the 
best  assistance.  M.  Guizot  sent  her  a  letter,  enclosing  a 
good  article.     It  was  accepted,   and  followed  by  several 

32 


374  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

others.  The  affair  led  to  a  personal  friendship,  and  five 
years  after,  to  a  marriage  between  th«  parties.  The  lady 
is  said  to  have  been  perfectly  worthy  of  him.  In  1809,  M. 
Guizot,  always  engaged  in  literary  labors,  published  his 
first  work — Le  Dictioimaire  des  Synonymes.  This  was  in 
the  twenty-third  year  of  his  age.  He  followed  it  with 
"  Lives  of  the  French  Poets,"  a  translation  of  Gibbon's  Ro- 
man Empire,  with  valuable  notes;  and  a  translation  of  a 
Spanish  work— "  Spain  in  1808." 

In  1812,  being  in  his  twenty-sixth  year,  he  became  ad- 
junct professor  of  history  in  the  University,  and  soon  after 
the  professorship  of  history  was  given  to  him. 

In  1814,  through  the  friendship  of  Royer-Collard,  he  be- 
came secretary-general  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 

Bonaparte's  return  from  Elba  sent  Guizot  back  to  his 
professorship. 

The  Constitutionalists  sent  him  to  plead  the  cause  of  their 
charter  before  Louis  XVIII.  in  Ghent— a  duty  which  he 
performed  successfully. 

In  1815,  his  reputation  being  fully  established,  he  was  made 
secretary  to  the  Minister  of  Justice,  and  became  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  party  of  Doctrinaires,  who  adopted  certain 
philosophical  views  of  justice  and  of  government.  This 
party,  it  was  said,  might  all  have  sat  upon  one  sofa.  The 
assassination  of  the  Due  de  Berri,  caused  an  expulsion 
of  the  Constitutionalists  from  office,  and  Guizot  lost  his 
place.  He  then  gave  himself  wholly  to  letters,  and  pub- 
lished various  historical  works  and  compilations,  besides 
essays  on  Shakspeare  and  review  articles. 

In  182T,  he  lost  his  first  wife — a  heavy  grief  to  him. 
This  lady  has  been  highly  eulogized,  as  a  person  of  extra- 
ordinary capacity  and  worth.  Though  born  a  Catholic,  it 
is  said,  that  for  her  husband's  sake,  who  gave  her  religious 
consolation  in  death,  she  died  a  Protestant. 

During  the  ministry  of  Polignac,  the  College  of  Lisieux 
elected  M.  Guizot  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  He  as- 
sisted in  the  Revolution  of  1 830,  and  wrote  the  famous  pro- 


GUizoT.  '       375 

test  of  the  Chamber  against  the  royal  ordinances.  He  be- 
came Minister  of  Public  Instruction  ;  afterwards  of  the  In- 
terior ;  and  in  this  last  office  exercised  the  power  of  expel- 
ling and  replacing  office-holders,  with  great  freedom.  Since 
then,  M.  Guizot  has  been  the  undoubted  first  man  in  the 
French  political  world.  Thiers  only  rivals  him  in  public  esti- 
mation. M.  Guizot  is  a  philosopher,  and  a  very  rigid  ruler. 
He  inclines  evidently  to  a  strong  and  even  a  despotic  gov- 
ernment. He  is  neither  democratic  nor  aristocratic,  but  con- 
stitutional. "    ■ 

We  gather  from  other  sources  that  M.  Guizot  is  a  mem- 
ber  of  the  Reformed  Church,  and  that  his  character  has  an 
English  cast,  for  gravity  and  reserve  ;  but  that  when  it 
pleases  him  to  be  affable,  his  powers  of  entertainment  are 
very  great. 

Under  the  Huguenot  persecution  his  grandfather,  Francis 
Guizot,  was  one  of  those  who  siiflfered  persecution  and  ex- 
ile, and  preached  to  his  scattered  flock  for  forty  years,  in 
dano-er  of  his  life. 

Of  M.  Guizot's  mother,  whose  husband  fell  by  the  guillo- 
tine under  Robespierre,  it  is  said  that  her  care  and  exemplary 
piety  formed  the  principles  and  guided  the  conduct  of  her 
son.     In  July,  1845,  this  venerable  person  was  still  living. 

Of  Guizot's  proficiency  in  early  life,  it  is  reported  that  at 
the  age  of  fifteen,  he  could  read  in  their  native  languages, 
Demosthenes,  Tacitus,  Dante,  Goethe,  and  Shakspeare. 

The  story  of'his  first  acquaintance  with  Mademoiselle  de 
Meulan  is  variously  told.  We  know  of  no  version  of  it  per- 
fectly  trustworthy.  She  wrote  books  on  education.  It  is  said 
that  her  husband's  influence  contributed  to  develop  her  talents. 

M.  Guizot  married  a  second  time,  but  is  now  a  widower. 

M.  Guizot's  doctrinaires  support  the  authority  of  Reason 
as  the  source  of  law.  Of  course  no  one  knows  precisely 
what  is  meant  by  that  term,  but  M.  Guizot's  '•'  Reason"  is 
at  present  very  analogous  with  the  more  ancient,  "  Reasons 
of  State,"  the  great  argument  of  those  who  love  and  sup- 
port despotism.    It  is  not  probable  that  M.  Guizot  has  much 


376  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

respect  for  the  opinion  of  the  people,  however  much  he  may 
desire  to  secure  their  happiness. 

Of  M.  Guizot's  private  conduct  his  contemporaries  speak 
with  unqualified  respect.  Instead  of  employing  his  office 
to  enrich  himself,  he  remains  comparatively  poor.  His  for- 
mer colleagues  have  amassed  millions,  he,*on  the  contrary, 
has  but  a  small  country-house  at  a  short  distance  from  Paris, 
and  will  leave  his  children  no  inheritance  but  his  name. 

His  manners  are  reported  to  have  a  certain  hardness,  con- 
sistent with  his  stoical  principles.  He  evidently  loves 
power,  and  feels  that  he  was  born  to  command. 

His  great  merit  is  constitutionality, — he  puts  all  govern- 
ment  into  a  solid  and  equitable  form. 


THIERS. 

Louis  Adolphe  Thiers  was  born  at  Marseilles,  April 
Gth,  1797.  His  father  was  a  locksmith  and  small  iron 
dealer,  and  his  mother  a  daughter  of  a  bankrupt  merchant, 
of  a  poor  but  proud  family. 

By  the  influence  of  some  relations,  Adolphe  was  admitted 
a  free  scholar  in  the  Imperial  Lyceum  of  Marseilles,  where 
he  acquitted  himself  creditably  until  1815,  when  he  re- 
moved to  Aix,  to  enter  upon  the  study  of  law.  Here  he 
formed  a  lasting  friendship  with  Mignet  the  historian,  who 
was  his  fellow-student.  In  this  situation,  Thiers  added  his- 
tory, philosophy,  and  belles-lettres,  to  his  law  studies,  and 
imbibed  radical  notions.  Even  then  he  showed  traces  of  the 
demagogue — declaimed  against  the  Restoration,  and  made 
himself  suspected  by  the  police  and  hated  by  the  faculty  of 
the  college. 


M.     THIERS.  377 

Rather  than  confer  the  prize  of  eloquence  upon  him,  his 
instructors  adjourned  the  trial  a  year,  when,  producing  the 
same  piece,  he  was  outdone,  much  to  their  satisfaction,  by 
an  anonymous  oration  sent  from  Paris ;  but  what  was  their 
subsequent  mortification  to  find  that  this  also  was  a  produc- 
tion of  their  mischievous  little  Jacobin,  who  had  taken  this 
pleasant  method  of  entrapping  them. 

As  a  lawyer  in  Aix,  Thiers  could  get  no  employment, 
and  went  with  Miijnet  to  Paris. 

During  the  first  months  of  their  residence  in  Paris,  our 
two  aspirants  took  a  lodging,  which,  since  their  arrival  at 
fame  and  fortune,  has  become  classic  ground.  The  house 
of  Shakspeare  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  was  never  visited  by 
the  votaries  of  the  bard  with  more  enthusiasm  than  the  ad- 
mirers of  French  literature  have  examined  the  dwelling  of 
the  future  Prime  Minister  of  France,  and  the  distinguished 
Professor  of  History.  A  dirty  dark  street  in  the  purlieus 
of  the  Palais  Royale,  is  called  the  Passage  Monte^squieu,  sit- 
uate in  the  most  crowded  and  noisy  part  of  Paris.  Here 
you  ascend  by  a  flight  of  steps  into  a  gloomy  and  miserable 
lodging-house,  in  the  fifth  story  of  which  a  smoked  door  con- 
ducts you  into  two  small  chambers,  opening  one  from  the 
other,  which  were  the  dwellings  of  two  men,  whose  celeb- 
rity, within  a  few  years  afterwards,  filled  the  world.  A 
common  chest  of  drawers,  of  the  cheapest  wood,  a  bed  to 
match,  two  rush-bottom  chairs,  a  little  rickety  nut-wood 
table,  incapable  of  standing  steadily  on  its  legs,  dnd  a  white 
calico  curtain,  formed  the  inventory  of  the  furniture  which 
accommodated  the  future  Prime  Minister  of  the  greatest 
country  in  Europe,  and  the  future  Historian  of  the  Revolu- 
tion.* 

After  some  time  spent  in  poverty  and  restlessness,  Thiers 
presented  himself  to  Manuel,  who  was  just  then  expelled 
from  the  Chamber,  under  Villele's  ministry.  Manuel  re- 
ceived  him  as  a  friend  and  partisan,  and  introduced  him  to 
Lafitte,  who  got  him  a  place  among  the  editors  of  the  Con- 

*  American  Review :  Dec.  and  Jan.,  1S46-7. 

32*- 


378  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

stitutionnell  His  bold  articles  in  that  paper  excited  great 
attention ;  and  the  young  politician,  in  despite  of  poverty, 
found  himself  drawn  into  the  best  circles  of  Paris. 

He  became  a  constant  and  admired  frequenter  of  the 
most  brilliant  assemblies  of  Lafitte,  Casimir-Perier,  and 
Count  Flahaut.  The  Baron  Louis,  the  most  celebrated 
financier  of  that  day,  received  him  as  his  pupil  and  friend, 
and  at  his  table  a  place  was  always  provided  for  M.  Thiers. 

He  gleaned  much  in  conversation,  was  a  good  talker  and 
listener;  and  fathered  anecdotes  and  facts  for  a  history  of 
the  French  Revolution,  which  he  was  then  composing. 

By  the  eclat  of  his  history  he  gained  valuable  friends. 
One  of  them,  an  obscure  German  bookseller,  Schubert, 
(whom  he  afterwards,  when  elevated  to  power,  painfully 
neglected,)  having  conceived  a  devoted  admiration  for  him, 
solicited  on  his  behalf  a  rich  publisher  beyond  the  Rhine, 
Baron  Cotta,  and  obtained  funds  by  which  one-half  of  the 
ConstitiitianeJ  was  purchased  and  put  into  Thiers'  hands. 

This  enabled  him  to  change  his  habits  of  life,  and  from  a 
poor  scholar  in  his  garret,  he  shone  out  a  Parisian  ma  i 
about  town.  He  was,  however,  exceedingly  diligent,  and 
made  the  utmost  improvement  of  the  fortune  thus  placed  at 
his  disposal.  He  rose  at  five  in  the  morning,  and  from  that 
hour  till  noon,  applied  himself  to  the  columns  of  the  Jour- 
nal, which  soon  in  his  hands  quintupled  its  receipts.  After 
having  thus  devoted  six  hours  to  labor  which  most  persons 
consume  in  sleep  and  idleness,  he  would  go  to  the  office  of 
the  paper  and  confer  with  his  colleagues,  among  whom 
were  MM.  Etienne,  Jay,  and  Everiste  Dumoulin.  His 
evenings  were  passed  in  society,  where  he  sought  not  only 
to  extend  his  connections,  but  to  collect  information,  which 
he  well  knew  how  to  turn  to  account.  In  accomplishing 
his  object,  some  struggle  was  necessary  to  overcome  his  per- 
sonal and  physical  disadvantages. 

"  In  stature  he  is  diminutive,  and  although  his  head  presents 
a  large  forehead,  indicative  of  intellect,  his  features  are 
common,  and  his  figure  clumsy,  slovenly,  and  vulgar.     An 


1 


M.     THIERS.  379 

enormous  pair  of  spectacles,  of  which  he  never  divests  him- 
self, half  cover  his  visage.  When  he  begins  to  speak  you 
involuntarily  stop  your  ears,  offended  by  the  nasal  twang  of 
his  voice,  and  the  intolerable  provincial  sing-song  of  his  dia- 
lect. In  his  speech  there  is  something  of  the  gossip  ;  in  his 
manner  there  is  something  of  *  *  He  is  restless  and 
fidgety  in  his  person,  rocking  his  body  from  side  to  side  in 
the  most  grotesque  manner.  At  the  early  part  of  his  ca- 
reer, to  which  we  now  refer,  he  was  altogether  destitute  of 
the  habits  and  convenances  of  society,  and  it  may  be  imag- 
ined how  singular  a  figure  he  presented  in  the  elegant 
salons  of  the  Faubourg  Chaussee  I'Antin.  Yet  this  very 
strangeness  of  appearance  and  singularity  of  manners, 
gained  him  attention,  of  which  he  vv^as  not  slow  to  profit. 
His  powers  of  conversation  were  extraordinary.  No  topic 
could  be  started  with  which  he  did  not  seem  familiar.  If 
finance  w'ere  discussed,  he  astonished  and  charmed  the 
bankers  and  capitalists.  If  war  were  mentioned,  and  the 
victories  of  the  Republic  and  Empire  referred  to,  the  old 
marshals,  companions  of  Napoleon,  listened  with  amazement 
to  details,  which  seemed  to  have  come  to  the  speaker  by 
revelation,  being  such  as  only  an  eye-witness  could  have 
given,  and  a  thousand  times  better  and  more  clearly  de- 
scribed, than  they,  who  were  present  on  the  scene  of  action, 
could  have  given  them.  In  short,  in  a  few  months,  M. 
Thiers  was  the  chief  lion  of  the  salons  of  the  Notables  of 
the  opposition  under  the  Restoration."* 

Soon  after  he  founded  a  new  paper,  the  "  National," 
more  radical  in  its  tendency,  and  aided  by  the  radical  party 
in  the  Chambers,  made  it  noticed  and  feared. 

He  directed  his  writings  and  conversation  against  the  ad- 
ministration of  Polignac,  and  absoluteism,  and  attacked 
every  ministerial  measure  with  great  fury. 

At  the  Revolution  of  July,  1830,  he  was  the  first  to  invite 
Louis  Philippe  to  the  throne,  but  had  not  discovered  any 
great  courage  in  the  Revolution  itself;  on  the  contrary,  it 
*  American  RevieTv,  Dec,  1846, 


380  BIOGRAPHICAL      ADDENDA. 

is  said,  he  retreated  to  a  place  of  safety,  at  the  first 
tokens  of  violence,  and  talked  rather  weakly  of  legal  meas- 
ures to  insure  order. 

Elected,  however,  a  deputy  from  Aix,  he  appeared  in  the 
new  Assembly,  dressed,  it  is  said,  a  la  Danton,  and  made 
himself  hated  and  ridiculous  by  his  bombast  and  insolence. 
In  return  his  proper  misanthropy  was  not  much  diminished. 

On  the  dissolution  of  the  Lafitte  ministry,  he  deserted  his 
old  friends,  and  went  over  to  the  hereditary  peerage  party 
in  the  Chambers.     He  became  a  violent  Monarchist. 

Up  to  this  time  Thiers'  parliamentary  efforts  had  been 
mostly  failures.  This  year,  1831,  on  the  important  ques- 
tion of  a  hereditary  peerage,  he  delivered  a  speech  of  four 
hours'  length,  which  with  numerous  defects  held  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Chamber,  and  established  his  reputation  as  an 
orator.  With  the  restlessness  of  his  nature,  he  let  no  op- 
portunity slip  of  improving  the  impression  he  had  made. 
The  next  year,  in  particular,  he  seized  upon  a  very  pe- 
culiar and  happy  exigence.  M.  Thiers  was  to  furnish 
them  a  long  and  complicated  report  of  the  committee  on  the 
Budget.  A  protracted  debate  then  in  progress  was  expected 
to  continue  much  longer.  It  happened  unexpectedly,  how- 
ever, that  the  debate  was  suddenly  brought  to  a  close  on  the 
22nd  of  January,  the  day  on  which  it  commenced,  and  the 
report  on  the  Budget  was  the  order  of  the  day  for  the  23rd. 
To  write  a  report  so  voluminous  in  a  single  night,  was  a 
mechanical  impossibility,  to  say  nothing  of  the  mental  part 
of  the  process.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  Such  reports  are 
always  prepared  in  writing  and  read  to  the  Chamber  for  this 
obvious  reason,  that  although  necessarily  the  composition  of 
an  individual  member  of  the  committee,  they  are  in  fact  sup- 
posed to  proceed,  and  do  really  possess  the  sanction  of  all 
the  members  of  the  committee,  as  well  as  of  that  individual 
member  who  is  more  especially  charged  with  their  composi- 
tion. M.  Thiers,  however,  pressed  by  the  exigency  of  the 
occasion,  and  not  sorry  to  find  an  occasion  for  playing  off  a 
parliamentary  tour  deforce^  went  down  to  the  Chamber  on 


M.     THIERS.  381 

the  morning  of  the  23rd.  He  presented  himself  in  the  Tri- 
bune,  and  apologizing  to  the  Chamber  for  being  compelled 
to  depart  from  the  usage  of  the  House,  by  the  unexpectedly 
early  period  at  which  the  report  was  called  for,  in  giving  a 
viva  voce  and  unwritten  report,  he  proceeded  at  once  to  the 
subject  aided  only  by  a  few  numerical  memorandas,  and  de- 
livered a  speech  of  four  hours'  duration,  in  which  he  discus- 
sed and  exhausted  every  topic  bearing  on  the  matter  of  the 
Budget.  He  plunged  with  the  more  ready  and  voluble  flu-  * 
ency,  into  financial,  political,  and  administrative  details,  un- 
folded with  a  logical  perspicuity,  an  arithmetical  order  and 
precision,  and  intermingled  with  bursts  of  picturesque  ora- 
tory with  which  he  astonished  and  confounded  the  Chamber. 
History,  politics,  public  economy,  questions  of  national  se- 
curity and  progress,  were  passed  in  succession  before  his 
wondering  hearers,  like  scenes  exhibited  in  a  magic  lantern. 
As  usual  no  topic  was  omitted,  every  question  was  mar- 
shaled in  its  proper  place  and  order,  and  the  House  never- 
theless exhibited  no  signs  of  fatigue ;  they  hung  upon  his 
words.  On  several  occasions  in  pauses  of  his  speech,  after 
he  had  continued  speaking  for  nearly  three  hours,  they  in- 
vited him  to  rest,  not  from  fatigue  on  their  part,  but  from  ap- 
prehension of  his  physical  powers  being  exhausted.  "  Re- 
pose-vous  en  pere,"  exclaimed  several  deputies.  He  pro- 
ceeded, however,  to  the  close  without  suspension. 

At  the  death  of  Casimir-Perier  in  1832,  he  was  made 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  during  the  Belgian  troubles,  and  the 
Vendee  insurrrections.  In  this  position  he  was  fortunate ; 
he  did  no  mischief  and  won  some  glory.  He  was  now 
broken  into  public  business,  and  exchanging  the  portfolio  of 
the  Interior  for  that  of  Commerce  and  Public  works,  every- 
thing prospered  which  he  engaged  in  ;  but  his  efforts  were 
directed  chiefly  to  the  completion  of  popular  public  works. 

In  the  disturbances  of  the  Republican  party,  in  1834, 
Thiers  discovered  more  courage,  and  redeemed  his  charac- 
ter in  a  measure,  from  the  reproach  of  cowardice  incurred 
by  his  flight  in  1830. 


382  BIOGRAPHICAL     ADDENDA. 

At  this  time  he  quarrelled  with  Marshal  Soult,  and  had 
the  better  of  him  in  abuse.  Soult  sent  in  his  resignation. 
His  successor  had  the  same  difficulty,  and  it  appeared  that 
Thiers,  if  not  a  brave  man,  was  at  least  a  very  quarrelsome 
and  abusive  one  when  it  suited  his  humor  to  be  so. 

Guizot  and  the  Due  de  Broglie  met  the  same  fate,  and 
could  not  keep  place  with  him.  He  now  began  to  be  abused 
on  all  sides,  and  soon  had  no  party,  a  condition  which  pres- 
ently forced  him  to  resign.  He  now  went  over  to  Lafitte 
and  the  Opposition,  as  was  natural,  after  seven  years  of 
monarchism  ;  and  now  found  time  to  prepare  his  histories 
of  Florence  and  of  the  Consulate. 

In  1840,  in  consequence  of  a  difficulty  on  the  part  of 
Guizot,  Mole,  and  Broglie  to  agree  with  the  Royal  policy, 
Thiers  came  again  into  power.  In  the  Syrian  affairs  he 
discovered  no  prudence  or  decision,  and  lost  influence,  but 
the  fortifications  of  Paris  were  easier  to  be  carried  through 
by  the  shrewd  king  and  the  cunning  minister.  By  the  pop- 
ular discontent  he  was  again  ejected  and  Guizot  succeeded 
him.  It  is  said  that  since  his  fall  from  favor  he  is  much 
more  of  a  radical ;  but  whether  he  is  or  not  seems  to  be  a 
matter  of  extremely  slight  importance. 

It  is  said  of  him  that  he  has  but  one  fixed  purpose  in  life, 
and  that  is  to  advance  himself.  » 


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